


Late Onset Digitalism

by EnglishLanguage, lobster_emoji



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Betrayal, Tron: Evolution, Tron: Uprising
Genre: Lots of OC's, Multi, Post-Legacy, Rating will go up later, Sam flexing those leadership muscles, Tron being paranoid, both mine and others', future Grid power couple, seriously a lot of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglishLanguage/pseuds/EnglishLanguage, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lobster_emoji/pseuds/lobster_emoji
Summary: Sam made a promise to Tron he'd help rebuild the Grid. He also promised Alan he'd take up his father's mantle at ENCOM. These promises are more mutually exclusive than he originally thought.As Sam tries to deal with two worlds, sooner or later, something's gotta give. It’s just that Sam never expected it to happen likethis.
Relationships: Sam Flynn/Tron
Comments: 25
Kudos: 87





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> And here's the prologue! Part One coming as soon as it's finished; please don't expect any kind of 'regular posting schedule' after the multiple installments of part one are up.  
> Written with the invaluable help of EnglishLanguage!

The Outlands may be desolate, lifeless rock features, but there is peace in them, Sam muses as the land scrolls by underneath him. And beauty, he decides, as he looks out at the distant star that grows brighter and closer with each passing nanosecond. Quorra sits next to him in warm, companionable silence, letting him swim in the wonder of the Grid. The solar sailer hums beneath him, around him, in phase with the energy of the Grid. A discordant rumble cuts through the air and orange lights ascend on either side of the sailer. 

“Recognizers,” Sam breathes. 

“Get below!” Flynn yells, and Sam and Quorra scramble for the rear of the ship.

The sailer coasts slowly into the belly of a scarlet behemoth floating near the edge of the world. The internal lights flick on, and the sailer’s carrying bodies—the latest battalion of soon-to-be-Rectified soldiers in Clu’s great army. Sam’s stomach twists at the repulsive sight of so many programs bent to Clu’s will—and isn’t it a distortion of his father’s will, as well? Twenty years before?

They begin to sneak off the sailer when faint footsteps down the row of cars draw their attention. Sam’s heart jumps into his throat—it’s Rinzler. 

Quorra kneels, handing her disc to his father, and walks away to confront the specter stalking the roofs of the cargo containers. Sam’s blood goes cold at the sight of him, flashing back to an arena of jeering programs, the world spinning about him, a disc buzzing at his throat. The orange of Rinzler’s circuits burn _wrong_ and Sam wonders if Rinzler had joined Clu willingly or had been dragged into the army, kicking and screaming. And then Flynn, his Dad, looks out at Rinzler with immense horror and sadness, and the world goes fuzzy around Sam as his father speaks one word. One word, dripping with years of meaning. 

“Tron.”

Sam surges forward on instinct, but a hand on his shoulder pulls him back. Quorra’s made her choice. He needs to make it out alive to end Clu and get his father back.

They can get Dad’s disc back right now, if they try; he’s a User. He’ll improvise. So Sam finds himself on the upper decks, cutting through Sentries to the Master Key. A program guards it—just one, a coward who lets the more powerful man by. Alarms sound as Sam grabs the disc, so Sam activates it at his side and pulls his own from his back. 

He’s making his way back towards the flight deck when Rinzler—Tron?—appears in his path, dragging Quorra by the neck. The enforcer pulls his discs off his back but doesn’t separate them—until he throws Quorra to the deck as she yells for Sam to run.

Sam holds two discs just above waist level with shaking hands. “Tron?” he asks, voice trembling. 

The program stops in his tracks. Lowers his head, shakes it once as if to clear it. Sam takes advantage of his confusion and cuts the bonds around Quorra’s hands, keeping a careful eye on the frozen program above him—who spins, suddenly, grabbing Sam’s arm and pinning him to the wall. Sam stares over his shoulder at Quorra, and motions with his head for her to _get out_. Miraculously, she complies, running no doubt to find his father. _Looks like this is it,_ he thinks, hearing the jeers of thousands of angry programs once more, as the discs combined in Rinzler’s right hand buzz hotter for a moment, twitching upwards. 

Instead, the same grating voice from earlier emanates from the helmet in front of him. “ _ ~~User…~~_ ~~”~~

“Yep, that’s me,” Sam says, terror in his bones but sarcastic to the last moment.

“ _ ~~I… haven’t been called…”~~_ Here, a horrible static sound screeches from the program’s helmet. “ _ ~~in cycles…”~~_ The helmet clicks back segment by segment, and Sam sucks in a breath at the apparition of his godfather from almost thirty years prior. But though they share a face, they don’t look anything alike. Rinzler—no, Tron—is heavily scarred, face a patchwork mess of dimmed grey rifts of dead voxels. Tron looks stricken, confidence shattered, while Alan had always been a strong presence, holding himself up for everyone else to lean on. The light’s gone out of this program’s eyes, but it seems to be coming back as he stares into Sam’s.

 _Perhaps Tron was a support, too, until…_ Sam shivers. “Your face… it’s so much like Alan’s,” he whispers.

Tron recoils like he’s been slapped. “ _ ~~I don’t deserve—I fought for the Users. I failed.”~~ _A single tear rolls down Tron’s face, and his grip on Sam slackens. 

Sam doesn’t bolt—not when any sudden movement to run could break this moment of trust. He places a hand on Tron’s shoulder and leans in to rest his head next to it, on Tron’s collarbone. Sam’s heart is racing; he feels like he’s put his head into a lion’s mouth.

Tron sinks to his knees, circuits flickering and dimming, and Sam goes with him. Sam opens his mouth to speak, choosing his words carefully. “Dad’s still alive. You helped him get away. You didn’t hurt me on the game grid. You haven’t failed. And the game’s not over yet.” 

Tron scoffs. “ _ ~~Game. This isn’t a game. Not anymore.”~~_

Sam winces. “You’re right. It’s just an expression. I meant that there’s still a chance for you to do what’s best for yourself. For _you,_ not what you feel other people need. Even Users.”

Tron’s circuits brighten again, washed out, dimmer, and nearly colorless but still unmistakably a pale blue. Definitely not the angry scarlet bleeding through his circuits before.

_~~“I fight for the Users, Sam Flynn. Are we bringing you and Flynn to the portal?”~~ _

Sam smiles morosely. “Yeah, we are. Gotta meet them on the flight deck; we’re stealing a lightjet.” _That’s the strong program I grew up hearing about._

Tron puts his helmet back up and runs at the window, flinging himself through. Sam watches as he rezzes an orange dragonfly-wing chute and soars into the flight deck. Sam grabs one off the wall and quickly follows.

Tron lands next to Quorra, who’s bolting for a lightjet. She stifles a scream, jumping away from him. Sam lands immediately behind, grabbing the hands of both programs and running towards the jet. He sees his Dad in the passenger seat, and he looks about as confused as Quorra at the addition of their new companion. 

Quorra takes the pilot’s chair, Sam slips into the rear chair, and Tron stands awkwardly behind him, bracing himself against the back of Sam’s chair for lack of a fourth.

Flynn carefully tells Quorra how to take off (“It’s all in the wrist.”), and as they’re soaring out to the portal, he turns to face Sam and Tron. “Brought a guest, did you?” 

Tron’s helmet retracts again, baring the scars on his throat and jaw and the steely look of anger in his eyes. “ _ ~~Flynn.”~~_

“Tron. Long time. You don’t sound so good, man.”

A whirring, hitching noise comes from Tron’s throat, much like a buzzing disc. That reminds him—“Dad, I got your disc,” Sam says, holding it out to his father.

Tron smiles darkly. “ _ ~~Don’t want the User going stray.”~~_ He emits a rush of static, straight off an old VHS, and Sam realizes it’s a laugh. Tron sobers up immediately, however, thinking of something in his past. 

A ping from the dashboard. “We’ve got lightjets on our tail,” Quorra says. 

“ _ ~~Leave it to me,”~~ _Tron says. He opens a hatch on the top of the jet and flings himself out, pulling a baton from his thigh and materializing a pale blue single-program fighter. With two quick shots, the contingent of Black Guard on their tail is two fewer, before the orange and gold jets have a chance to scatter.

Sam whistles. “Damn. He’s good.”

Flynn softly speaks. “The best.”

Two guards and Clu weave in and out of the rocks as Tron takes potshots from above, slowly picking off the Black Guard and taking shots just barely avoided by Clu. 

Clu’s not without his own defense. A lucky shot to Tron’s wing leaves him spiraling out of control, and Tron uses the last power in his jet to get close to the larger one with the Flynns and Quorra inside. He leaps and hits the top, clinging on for dear life as his fighter jet plummets into the Sea a smoking wreck. Clu jets past them, on to the portal ahead.

 _He still doesn’t have Dad’s disc,_ Sam thinks. _We’re not too late._

Sure enough, as the four of them run up to the portal, a figure cut in gold stands in their way. “I’m disappointed in you, Rinzler!”

Tron snarls, voice and discs forming one static charge pointed directly at his former master. He lunges forward, discs shrieking. 

“Tron!” Flynn calls out, trying to hold him back, and the program pauses, Clu still leering at them.

“Are you going to stay?” Flynn asks. “I don’t know if you can leave for the User world.”

“ _ ~~I will stay, but I will see you off,”~~_ Tron says. 

Flynn leans in, whispering in Tron’s ear. “I don’t think Sam and Quorra can make it out with me. I’m going to initiate reintegration. You should get out of here.”

“ _Answer me!”_ Clu screams. 

Tron leans in. “ _ ~~I will make sure Sam and Quorra make it safely, then I will use my other lightjet to escape. Good luck.”~~_

Tron steps back and takes Quorra and Sam by the arms, leading them forward towards Clu.

Clu yells at Flynn in the background. “I did everything you ever asked!” Sam’s not listening. He can’t. 

Sam looks to Tron for a moment. “You coming?” 

_~~“My place is here. I can no longer fight for the Users as I once did; I have to do what’s best for the grid.”~~ _

“Mighty noble of you. You’re going to do good here.” Sam stops, taking a deep breath. “I’m gonna miss you, you know. I barely know you and I’m going to miss you.” An idea occurs to him. “Do you want any help shaking off the Rectification?”

“ _ ~~Do not touch my code.”~~_

“I wasn’t talking about me recoding you! Especially not me! No. I was thinking about getting Alan to look at your code. God, no. I can bet you wouldn’t like that. The offer stands only if you’re comfortable with it.” 

Tron stops. “ _ ~~I don’t know.”~~_

Sam nods. “You don’t have to decide now. I’ll be back, Tron. Unless you want me to fuck off too.”

Tron doesn’t respond, just gently shoves Sam to the portal. 

Sam takes the dismissal and turns to the portal with Quorra. He sees his father envelop Clu as Tron flies into the air on a jet, and it all whites out in the portal—a rush of light, and the smell of dust fills Sam’s nose. He’s home.


	2. Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is back on the grid for the first time since he last saw his father, and there's work to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part one is finally done! Enjoy!

Sam is perfectly capable of doing math, thank you very much.

If a millicycle is about eight hours, then (doing the math) a year in his world is worth fifty in the Grid. And if that doesn’t hurt, emotionally, then nothing can; thinking of his father hiding for a thousand years—how didn’t he go crazy?

But it matters now, too—Sam promised Tron he’d be back when he left the Grid that night. He’s spent two weeks since then completely changing ENCOM’s structure from the inside out. The work of getting things organized is pleasantly challenging, but it’s left him pulling eighteen hour days for far too long. But however long it’s felt to him, Tron has been waiting two whole years for Sam to return.

The guilt Sam feels over that gap is incredible—hence why he’s spending the start of his first day off as CEO on his motorcycle, headed to the arcade.

He falls into the Grid all over again. It doesn’t feel any different than the first time.

He’s still wearing the armor the Sirens outfitted him with on his first visit. Zuse seemed to imply he was sticking out—maybe he could change it?

Sam fiddles with the disc on his back and manages to create a new getup that vaguely resembles his favorite hoodie outside. It’s helpful that the system naturally seems to pick forms for the circuits without much nudging on his part. Thank god for that; Sam doesn’t have much of a sense for graphic design. 

He emerges from the digital replica of his father’s arcade, and sucks in a sharp breath in shock. Tron is standing on the steps like an apparition, exhausted, all the worse for wear, and close to tears. “ _ ~~You came back,~~_ ” Tron rasps. 

“I’m so sorry—” Sam begins.

“ _ ~~You came back,~~_ ” Tron repeats. “ _ ~~That is enough.~~_ ”

“How have you been holding up?” Sam asks.

 _ ~~“As well as possible, given the circumstances,~~_ ” Tron says. “ _ ~~I have been doing my best to keep the Grid in order while continuing to fight off the corruption in me, but it is… an ordeal,~~_ ” he admits. _~~“I was not written to lead. Only to protect.~~ ”_

Sam frowns, the analytical side of his mind kicking in after weeks in a higher leadership role of his own. “Okay, so where do we start? How’s it out of order? What help do you need?” As Tron whirs a bit louder in frustration, Sam reconsiders his approach??. “Let’s take some of the corruption out of your system first; I haven’t had the opportunity to talk with Alan about… all of this, yet, but I’m sure I can get him to look at you _soon—_

 _“ ~~Can you not do it?~~_ ” Tron asks. “ _ ~~I thought about it, in the past two cycles.~~_ ”

“Well…” Sam says. “I have been studying your source code whenever I need to take five. By that I mean the most recent edition of you Alan still has saved. If I can take out the stuff that was clearly Clu’s doing, you’ll be feeling… better. Not perfect—” Tron flinches. “But better.”

Tron smiles softly. “ _ ~~Perfect’s overrated.~~ ” _He pulls his discs from his back and sits on the steps, the whir of a damaged hard drive growing louder with the movement. 

Sam takes the discs offered and sits, pulling up the scrolling lines of code. He examines them all, staring intently as Tron watches. “This thing’s got to have some kind of version history, right?” he mutters. 

Sure enough, with a twitch of his pinky, timestamps float out to the side of the code. Sam mentally files everything pre-1989 as good, but starts highlighting and removing the increasingly garbled and unfamiliar chunks of commands that look like something… just left… of one of his father’s old projects.

Tron, watching it all happen, appears to be reliving memories. A few glowing blue tears leak out of his eyes, rolling down his cheeks only to get caught and drained by one of the deep gashes in Tron’s face.

Sam contemplates his work—it feels like he’s already burned up two of his eight hours for this visit. _I really need to work on some better portal controls, if I’m gonna be coming back on the regular,_ he thinks. “It’s as good as it’s gonna ever gonna be, without Alan helping,” he finally declares, and hands the discs back to Tron. 

Tron takes them in hand, staring through the hole in the middle. “ _ ~~Thank you,~~_ ” he says, and lifts the discs back to their dock. He stiffens, eyes flashing as the changes sync; the horrible scars across his body slowly glow blue, dead voxels coming back to life, and fill in the gaps with unblemished skin one by one. 

Tron slumps to the steps as it happens; Sam catches him before his head hits a corner, letting him down slowly. 

“That looks a bit painful,” Sam whispers. “Easy now, you’re safe. I’ve got you.” It’s uncanny, to watch someone with his godfather’s much-younger face in this much pain; usually Alan is comforting him. All the scars but one against his left cheek melt away, and even that one shrinks, as Tron’s circuits gain more color, shifting from a lifeless, desaturated white back to their old, vibrant blue.

Tron opens his eyes slowly. “You’re right,” he whispers, voice no longer sounding like sandpaper rubbing against old TV static. Unfiltered, it’s his User’s voice through and through. “About everything.”

Another program comes creeping out of the shadows. Sam looks up, disc out and buzzing, but Tron sits up and pulls him back by the hand. “Easy.”

The program’s lit in a much deeper blue than Sam’s seen before, and looks concerned, disc alight in his hand. “What did you do to Tron?”

“Sam Flynn,” Tron calls, “purged my code of the last of Clu’s corruption. It hurt going in, it hurt coming out. You are allies.”

The mysterious new program stands down, returning his disc to his back. “We were worried when you ran off,” he says. 

“No problem, Scipio,” Tron says, pulling himself up from the steps of the arcade. “Our User is back.”

Scipio heaves a deep sigh of relief. “Finally.”

“Sorry, again,” Sam offers. “I wish I could have made it back sooner.”

Tron frowns. “I swear I’ve told you all about the time difference. It’s been two cycles for us but in the User world it felt like only about forty-two millicycles. He can’t be blamed.”

“It’s been a long two cycles,” Scipio grouses. 

“Better late than never, right?” Sam tries. “I want to help. What needs fixing?”

Tron thinks for a moment. “I suppose the most pressing problem is the degradation of the communication and transportation systems linking the Grid’s cities. I sent a program to assess the three remaining outer cities, but she hasn’t returned yet. It’s been a quarter cycle.”

“That’s like three months, yeah?” Sam says. 

“I don’t know,” Scipio cuts in. “But Barca hasn’t been back. Last status ping, she had finished covering Bismuth and was heading back, but since the train lines are down she’s on foot. The Outlands wrecked her lightcycle trying to get to Bismuth the first time.”

“Let me try to get some kind of internal portal control set up,” Sam says. “That way I can stay for more than a millicycle.”

“That might be a good idea,” Scipio admits. 

“Flynn’s chief hindrance _was_ the strict limitation on his time here,” Tron agrees. 

Sam cracks into the code on the arcade building, thinking while he works. “So if a millicycle is equal to just over ten minutes, and I have about two hours of time to spend here, how many millicycles is that?” he wonders aloud.

“Two hundred?” Scipio tries. 

“No, Flynn told me that User time is in base sixty, not ten,” Tron corrects. 

“Not perfectly,” Sam interjects. “Sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, but twenty four hours to a day.”

“What?” Scipio says, baffled. 

“It gets worse,” Sam laughs, fiddling with a command line. “Seven days to a week, but thirty days to a month, but even then not always. We have a little song to remember when it is and when it isn’t. Fifty two weeks to a year, or twelve months. _Then_ it goes to base ten; ten years to a decade, ten decades to a century, and so on. No one really needs to go much farther than a century.”

Scipio holds his head in his hands. “Why are Users like this?” he mutters. 

“At least the time units we need to know to answer Sam’s question are the parts in even base sixty,” Tron says. “Ten and a half minutes to one millicycle. That’s about eleven millicycles he can stay and help.”

“And that feels like—hmm,” Sam says. “What’s eleven divided by three?”

“About four,” Scipio responds. 

“Wow. Four days in the grid,” Sam says. “I bet I can get a lot done in that.”

“Wait, I thought you had two hours?” Scipio groans. Tron just chuckles. 

Scipio quickly leaves to keep up the tasks he’s been assigned by Tron to maintain the grid, but Tron himself stays by Sam’s side for microcycles.

Sam exhales deeply, cracking his neck. “Man, I haven’t marathon coded like this since my Caltech days.”

“What is Caltech?” Tron asks. “I heard Flynn mention it a few times.”

“It’s a college. A place where younger Users go to learn things. I went there, so did Dad,” Sam says. “I spent a fair bit of time writing code in my dorm. But I think I got this. Routed the portal here, instead of way out at sea, and it can only be activated with a User’s disc.”

“How do you know it works?” Tron worries. 

“Just gotta test it,” Sam says, grinning at Tron beside him. “I’ll be right back.”

Sam steps into the arcade and finds the newly-programmed portal controls. Raising his disc, he steps in, and with a flash he’s back in the dusty User-world arcade.

Turning around, he immediately zaps himself back in. Seconds are minutes, after all.

Tron is waiting again, smiling proudly in stark contrast to what he’d looked like a mere half-millicycle before. 

“So. We got eleven millicycles?” Sam says. “Infrastructure. That’s a good first task.”

The infrastructure is, as Scipio rants frustratedly about in the headquarters with an audience of trustworthy programs, a mess. With the solar sailer routes and train lines controlled by Clu’s Occupation armies, they’d become completely unusable in the cycles since Sam had been here last. The road between Gallium and Argon, as Scipio wasted no time in informing Sam, was about the only stable thing left, and even then the bridge just south of Gallium had been destroyed at some point by a rebel faction and never repaired. 

“Bridge? Over what?” Sam asks. 

“The river,” Tron gently explains. “I should catch you up on the map.”

Scipio pulls up a diagram. “Tron City, here in the west of the Grid with only the barren mountains farther. The river forms a hexagon around most of it, making it an island. Gallium, just over the river to the northeast, with the river emptying into the hexagon just south of the city. The bridge is there. Argon, connected by road, even farther northeast of Gallium, on the north edge of the Grid by the sea. Bismuth, used to be accessible only by train. Out in the east, on a big flat plain. Bismuth is the smallest completed city. Carbon, beyond Bismuth on the same train line, twice as far, is a half-finished wreck that got abandoned _cycles_ ago.”

“So from what I can tell,” Sam says, “Argon and Gallium are still mostly connected, but the other two main connections were destroyed when Clu was.”

Scipio nods. “Yes.”

Sam frowns. “Eleven more millicycles. Let’s get all three old connections working again, and maybe a few cycles down the road when the Grid’s no longer in crisis mode, we can establish a few redundancies. So no one like your Barca gets stuck walking back from Bismuth when the train is down. What will be easiest to fix?”

“The bridge will need rebuilding, but we can use old designs,” says a program from the end of the table; Tron didn’t introduce anyone to Sam before calling a meeting of the programs who’d taken charge of maintaining the Grid. “The sailer beams are nonfunctional, but can be reactivated easily, and the sailer body itself can be re-rezzed too. The train to Bismuth is still in place, but without control programs it can’t be run, and Clu had all the capable programs rectified. The solar sailer is probably easiest to repair, the bridge most difficult.”

“Thank you… what’s your name?” Sam asks.

“Shaddox.”

“He was an architect of the Grid in its early cycles,” Tron says proudly. “When things started getting questionable, with Clu becoming more aberrant, he stepped down, which protected him from Clu. Now, while all the other system architects and leaders are gone, Shaddox is far and away the most capable of starting the rebuilding effort.”

“Good to have your help,” Sam says. “Let’s get a start on the sailer beams, shall we?”

“The problem is that we need independent control programs, and there’s no organized system to control the schedules,” Shaddox says. “I’ll write some, if there aren’t any left,” Sam declares. 

“We’ll also need a construction and repair program or two to rebuild the bridge,” Shaddox continues. “All the ones living in Tron City and Gallium were rectified, and most of the programs in Argon had been called out to Bismuth to build there. There was a skeleton crew working on the Argon arena, last I heard. Probably also military.”

“So we write new programs to help make the sailer and train functional again, and find existing programs to rebuild the bridge from old designs,” Sam says. “Task list. Nice. Shall we get started?”

*****

Tron sets a glass of energy on the table by Sam, who’s been staring into a set of screens in Tron’s security headquarters for about a millicycle and a half, examining the solar sailer’s code for what a control program would need to be capable of and then writing snippets based off of that. 

Tron puts a hand on Sam’s shoulder to remind him to take care of himself, then walks away to talk to the program anxiously tapping his feet in the doorway.

“Why won’t you get farther than a few pixels away from him?” Scipio demands.

Tron frowns. “He’s even more reckless than Flynn sometimes, he needs protecting,” he says. 

“You mean you want to make up for failing Flynn by hovering over this new User,” Scipio says, poking Tron in the chest just under his insignia. “Ease up. Go for a walk. Let the User handle himself, and actually address the _city._ We may not have sixteen million programs to protect in the city anymore, but half that is still substantial.”

“For the next ten millicycles, they have you and Ajax and Hector, and Barca when she gets back,” Tron says. 

“They need _you,_ Tron,” Scipio says. “Me? And the others? We’re all just security programs. You’re an _icon_. Your symbol was on the old HQ building. You inspired a revolution out in Argon. Your name is on the _city_ , for the Users’ sake.”

“Beck started the revolutio—”

“Beck started it!” Scipio scoffs. “It was the _idea of you_ that started it. Your _precious_ Beck, my ass. _He’s_ the perfect program, as good as the great and mighty Tron. Where’s that mighty Tron now, huh? Cowering by the User’s side, not good enough for himself? No one ever seen you like this before?”

Tron bows his head, turning to move to Sam, but Scipio grabs his arm. “Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m wrong.”

Tron summons his voice to speak. “I’m not _perfect_ ,” he says, spitting the final word. “I don’t ever want to be again.” His free hand twitches toward the scar on his face. “The only thing you were wrong about is that you’re the first program to see me afraid.”

“So I’m not special,” Scipio mutters to himself.

Sam appears from nowhere, clapping a hand onto each program’s shoulder. “Boys, stop fighting,” he says. “We _all_ need therapy, but that’s not an option right now, so we gotta keep working.”

“What’s therapy?” Scipio asks, genuinely befuddled.

“I, however, really need a break after about twelve hours of coding,” Sam says. “Probably to sleep for a whole millicycle. Tron, you’re helping me get situated in that regard.”

“You need a rest cycle?” Tron says. “It’s about time you took one.”

“And while I’m dead to _both_ worlds,” Sam grins, “you two should do your security monitor thing together. Talk out your feelings. That’ll help.”

“Meet you back here at headquarters in fifty micros?” Tron says to Scipio. 

“Better make it sixty,” Scipio says. “Now go get him settled.”

Tron nods, and leaves with Sam behind him.

“So where are we headed?” Sam asks. “I obviously don’t have an apartment here.”

“To mine,” Tron says. “I don’t use it much; I don’t have to take as many rest cycles as most programs. But you can use it whenever you need to, when you’re on the Grid. I’ll key the door to your disc, too.”

“Mi casa es su casa, huh?” Sam says. 

“I have no idea what you just said,” Tron replies. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam says. “It was a joke.”

The apartment is in a tall building in the city’s outer circle, overlooking the river and the Outlands to the east. It’s decorated sparsely, like an IKEA ad entirely in white, blue, and black, but feels home-like enough. Sam goes to the window, overlooking the river—in the distance, the patch of sky where the portal would be if it were held open. 

“It hasn’t been lived in too much,” Tron says from behind him, looking almost awkward. “I’ve been really busy these past two cycles, keeping the grid in order, only coming back a few dozen times a cycle to take a long rest, and for the thousand-forty-nine cycles before that…”

Sam doesn’t have to hear it. “I get you. It’s okay. It’s my turn to show up just to head to bed. Where am I heading, by the way?”

“Um, the bedroom’s on your left.”

There is, in fact, a door built into the wall. It slides open with a brush of Tron’s hand to its circuits. Sam turns and enters the bedroom—it’s even more spartan than the main apartment. It’s a bed in a room, mostly—there’s space for more, with another door to the left, but otherwise it’s almost entirely empty. The bed doesn’t even have blankets on it.

Tron stands in the doorway. “I’ll just… go, then? Wait—” He goes to the other door, and pulls from what looks to be a closet a set of sheets and blankets, handing them to Sam. “I haven’t used them since before the ISO Wars… I haven’t wanted to get caught in them if I need to move fast, after the Reintegration. You’re good now?”

Sam smiles at him, heart internally breaking at the fear Tron carries for some simple blankets. “I’ll sleep fine. Wake me up in a millicycle if I haven’t come and found you yet.”

Tron nods briskly, strides away towards the main door, and disappears.

Sam quickly makes the bed, then sets his armor on the floor by the door. He climbs into bed, and before he can so much as turn over, he’s out.

He wakes to a hand on his shoulder. Tron’s shaking him a bit roughly, worry creased across his face. “You weren’t waking up,” Tron explains. 

“Ugh, guess I needed a little more rest,” Sam groans, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “How many millicycles left now?” 

“Nine,” Tron replies. 

“Great. Bring me back to HQ? I almost got the new sailer control program working, he’s almost ready to be compiled,” Sam says, pulling on his armor. “I just know it’s a bad idea to keep going when my hands are shaking too much to type.”

“You worked for a straight three millicycles,” Tron says, handing Sam the vambraces. “I don’t know about Users, but for most programs, we run in groups of three. Work for one, relax for another, then rest for a third.”

“That’s just like a User’s day,” Sam responds. “We’re not so different, I just make stupid choices every so often. What about you? You said you don’t have to rest in threes?”

Tron frowns. “I rest a seventh as often, and work the remaining when needed. If I have spare time to relax, I do, but that’s not often.”

Sam frowns. “Dude. Every week?”

“It’s in my programming,” Tron defends. “I’m perfectly capable. Let’s go.”

By the time they get back to headquarters, a tall program is waiting for them with a data packet. Sam has to look up to see the guy’s face. 

“Ajax, what’ve you got?” Tron sighs deeply, tensing for bad news.

The security program brightens. “Actually, sir, it’s good. Aerial observation from the downtown tower has spotted four programs making their way down the Argon highway on foot. We think it’s Barca and whoever she’s brought with her from the outlying colonies. We haven’t had any obvious structural degradation since before the User arrived, and the programs of the city seem to be encouraged by the idea of reconnecting to Gallium.”

“So they were discouraged before?” Sam asks, pulling up his code. 

“We all knew Flynn was gone, for good, and no one… except for me… knew if you were going to return,” Tron says. “The system was doomed to fall into disrepair without an admin to keep it in line, whether it’s a sysadmin program or a User.”

“Well, they’re about to get Gallium back,” Sam said, skimming code. “I just have a few more lines to write after I finish proofreading this, and this new program _Sol_ will be up and running.”

A quarter millicycle later, Sam’s still fixing notation in the latter half of the code. “Hey Tron?” he asks as the monitor passes him by. “Never let me code for twelve straight hours ever again. This has got more typos than my last few Caltech papers.”

“Noted,” Tron grins. 

“But I think what’s there is straightened out. Give me a few min—microcycles and I’ll be done.”

Sam types for a bit and hits compile. “Boom. Done. As soon as the program runs, we’re in business.”

Tron pauses, sitting at Sam’s desk instead of his own and taking the information he has to look over. The loading bar on the compiler creeps slowly forward, one constant of both worlds. Suddenly it resolves into two buttons: _Save_ and _Run_. 

Sam gleefully hits _Run_ , and Tron’s tablet is ignored. The projected screens come together in a ball of light and move out over the floor. They form the shape of a person—and a program stands where the light was. He looks around, bewildered. 

“Hey, buddy, welcome to the Grid!” Sam beams at him. “You know your name, directive?”

“I’m…” the program falters, then steels himself to reply. “I’m Sol. I help programs travel across the Grid in the sailers.”

“You got it, man,” Sam says. “Good start to your life, huh? Tron, what do programs call their life?”

“Their runtime,” Tron says. “Now we should probably get the sailer back up and running for Sol to get to work.”

“It’s broken?” Sol asks, distraught. The sailer is his _purpose._

“Not for long,” Sam assures him. “It’s actually less broken, more inactive.”

Sol takes to the controls like a fish to water, as Sam says to Tron’s bemusement. In minutes—no, microcycles—he’s standing at the bow of the sailer, flanked by Tron and Scipio, with another of their security programs pacing the rear of the platform. Not Ajax, the tall one, but a much smaller program who Scipio called Hector. 

The river flows beneath the shining solar sailer beam. It’s just as inky as the sea, as Sam remembers it from his last trip to the Grid, the golden light faintly glinting off the water far below. Tron shudders a bit, looking at it. Sam shoots him a questioning glance. _You okay?_

Tron whispers to Sam: “After Reintegration, my jet went down over the sea from the shockwave. I hit the water; I was too exhausted to climb the cliffs back at the edge of the Grid, and had to drift around to Argon.”

Sam pulls him in. “Shit, Tron, that’s really far. Sorry you’d have to go through that.”

Tron extricates a hand from Sam’s side hug—and pats the two batons attached to his left thigh. “I keep two jets on hand, now. And two cycles. And a beam sword, just in case.”

Sam holds him a little tighter for a split second more before releasing him. _That can’t be healthy,_ he thinks. _Pot to kettle, but still. Even_ I _can recognize that._

They coast above the shorter buildings of Gallium’s edges, coming to a stop nestled in a station built into the middle of a tall building. Sol waves Sam, Tron and his security team goodbye before heading back to the beam nexus in Tron City, and Sam turns to set out. 

The base of the tower is crowded with programs who were cut off simultaneously from the capital they’d relied on so heavily and all its more distant neighbors. They’re eager for the changes Sam’s bringing them, but right now Sam’s just trying to get another lane of transportation open. 

He cycles through the crowd slowly, encouraging them to part, and zips for the bridge once he’s in the clear. The buildings on either side of the streets look like they’re in okay shape, but the city’s a ghost town compared to the capital. 

It’s not long before the street splinters and shatters away into nothing, the starts of poles forming the only sign a suspension bridge was ever here. The black river rushes by underneath, a soft thrum far below as it starts to section off into a delta, dumping into the thick channels surrounding Tron City in a perfect hexagon before meandering back into the Outlands. It’s a deeply forbidding sight.

Four pinpricks of light appear on the other side of the bridge—programs, one green, three blue. 

One of the blue programs waves to the other side, and Scipio waves back. “It’s Barca,” he declares, smiling at last. 

Tron takes off running, flinging himself off the edge, and Sam rushes forward before remembering Tron’s hyper-prepared baton-hoarding; a jet rezzes, flies the distance of the gap, and lands on the other side. Tron clearly offers his second to one of the programs, and he flies back over with one program in the other jet. 

Immediately after dropping off the program, Tron takes the other baton back over the river to get the rest.

“Thank the Users, Barca, you’re finally back,” Scipio says. “What’s it like in the outlier cities?”

She sighs. “Bismuth’s in fairly good shape. They and Carbon had all the construction and repair programs, so the city’s intact, and Bismuth still has plenty of access to energy from the spring. Since Carbon City was so unfinished, so far beyond Bismuth, they pulled out of there and back to Bismuth. It’s completely abandoned. Argon is… splintered. I brought back one of their main leaders to talk to Tron—”

Tron returns, dropping another blue-lit female program next to Barca.

“This is Argo,” Barca introduces. “A builder from Bismuth. Argo, this is security lieutenant Scipio and my good friend Hector…” She looks pointedly at Sam. “And you are?”

“Sam Flynn,” he says, offering his hand to shake.

Barca’s eyebrows fly upward. “The User?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I’m finally back, and right now, I’m trying to fix the Grid’s basic infrastructure.”

“Well, that’ll do wonders for Argon and Gallium,” she mutters. Tron returns with the next blue program. “This is Eva, the other builder I brought with me.” 

“Hi,” she says.

“Nice to meet you two,” Sam says. “After we get the designs for the old bridge I’m going to need you two to start on that—shit, I forgot about the designs. We need to physically go get them from the Archive, wherever that is.”

“Well,” Barca says, “Looks to me like it’s just a few micros’ trip back over the river now that the sailer’s working again.”

Sam shrugs. “Guess you’re right.”

The jets land again. “And this is Paige,” Barca introduces. 

“I know,” Tron says, gruffly, with helmet still up. “Saw a lot of you back when I was in Argon, during the early Occupation.”

“Tron?” Paige says, incredulous. “You look different.”

Tron’s helmet flits down. “Clu made sure of that,” he says. “When he rectified me.” 

Sam cuts in. “Okay, I get the sense that Barca was supposed to kinda assess the four cities that weren’t the main city, yeah? Why don’t you, Scipio, start working Gallium back into your regular patrols. Argo, Eva, you two start figuring out what needs fixing, building-wise, in Gallium. Work with the security team; they already have a list for Tron City. And you two,” he says, pointing at Paige and Tron, “Start figuring out a system for bringing the other three cities back into the fold.”

“What are you going to do?” Tron asks, at the same time Paige asks, “Who are you, exactly?” 

“Well, I’m heading to get those plans,” Sam says. “Actually, I’m going to need some guidance. Map, maybe?”

“No, we’re coming with you,” Tron declares. “Come with us, Paige, we’re heading back to the sailer station, taking the new _User_ to find the Archives.”

“A User?” Paige says to Tron as Sam drives away. “He’s not what I expected.”

“No,” Tron says. “He’s not what I expected either, and I knew Flynn better than than any other program on the Grid. Sam’s better.”

On the sailer, Sam turns to Paige, indicating her circuits with a wave of his hand and asks, “Why green? What’s different there?”

“I was a medic program, cycles ago. Then Tesler lied to me, convinced me to join Clu’s army. I was never rectified,” Paige says, eyes down. “I wore orange for cycles. But I doubted, occasionally, if I was doing the right thing. When I defected from the army I returned to my old medic’s green.”

“And let me guess,” Sam says. “You wanted to help programs, like your medic’s training instructs, so you joined the army thinking that was the way to go. Then you quit, and now helping people is about using those old army skills to keep Argon city together. It’s smart.”

“Paige was a commander in the army,” Tron informs him. “She was one of the bigger threats I faced during my time there—I was captured before her defection.”

“One of?” Paige teases. 

“Well, there was, you know, Tesler and Dyson, and Clu himself after a bit,” Tron says. 

Paige sighs. “There was that, yeah,” she says. 

Sam makes a note of the unfamiliar names to look up later. Maybe some other trip he can sneak off to the Archives and learn the history his Dad could never tell him.

“So you two have a _history_ , then,” Sam says with a smirk, deliberately leaving it open to interpretation.

“Not _that_ kind of history.” Tron rolls his eyes. “We were enemies for a time, and then again as we both switched sides in the fight.” 

“Rinzler was the most terrifying opponent I’ve ever faced,” Paige murmurs. 

Tron’s face scrunches up and he looks over at Paige. “We fought directly? My memory isn’t as clear as it could be, sometimes.”

“Not for long…” Paige trails off. “No one survived you—Rinzler—for longer than it took to flee. Except, as I hear, him,” she says, gesturing to Sam.

“Hey, I was getting my ass kicked,” Sam says. “The only reason I made it out of there was because I bled a bit and Rinzler felt he had to drag me to meet Clu.”

The sailer glides to a halt in the station, and Shaddox is waiting there, tapping his feet. “User, I took the liberty of finding you the old bridge plans,” He calls up to Sam, still sprawled across the sailer’s deck. “I also picked up the plans for a handful of the more important or common buildings in Gallium. I assume you’ll be needing them.”

“Thanks, man!” Sam says, bounding down to meet the architect. He takes the sizeable stack of hexagonal file discs, looking around for a place to put them, but settles for holding it. “Oh by the way, I don’t know if you’ve already thought of this or not, but can you and your people start making a complete list of all the buildings and roads and stuff that need fixing in this city? I’ve got the two construction programs we have nearby working on that now, in Gallium, with Tron’s security team.”

Shaddox nods. “I already have a list for Tron City, but I can come and assist in forming Gallium’s, if you would like?”

“Perfect, hop on! No need for me to waste time and go to the Archives now, so we’ll just head back and get to work,” Sam declares. Sol turns the sailer back around and they’re coasting back over the river for the third time.

Sam turns to Paige. “So. I can see full well what’s going on in Tron City and Gallium right now. Pretty quiet, practically a ghost town now that Clu’s gone, seeing as how his control over them was pretty much a stranglehold. How’s Argon city faring? I heard from Barca it’s ‘splintered’.”

Paige winces. “Not good. Clu’s control was, pretty shaky, for the most part, so his disappearance left a power vacuum. The city really _is_ splintered. I tried, at first, to take control myself and maintain order, but at this point it’s just easier to let the more… violent factions fight it out and just create a safe zone for programs who don’t want to derezz each other senselessly.”

Sam frowns. “Lovely. So who’s your big competition? I’m hoping to get there within the next millicycle or two, so brief me.”

Paige looks over at Tron. “It’s like working with Tesler again, but less scary.”

“Sam is certainly more organized than Flynn ever was,” Tron replies.

Paige clears her throat. “My former… colleague, Pavel, is one of the most dangerous,” she replies. “He and I were commanders together under General Tesler when I was still in the army. He was given command of Purgos, to get him out of the way. Never got promoted out of there, and he mobilized it, after Reintegration. His territory is the old Occupation orange—”

“It’s orange?” Sam interjects. 

“The buildings’ circuits physically turn orange,” Paige says. 

“So is your zone green?” Sam asks.

“Not exactly,” Paige says. “It’s technically aqua, but it’s so light it looks white sometimes. But onto others—there’s a gang in pink down by the docks that’s largely insignificant on a city-wide scale, but since my group’s based so close to the docks, in the garage, they’re troub—”

“The garage?” Tron asks. “Do you know if…”

“Beck’s hasn’t been derezzed,” Paige says. “He’s not exactly in his old Renegade form, but. He’s alive. Um. I wear the suit, now. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Who’s Beck?” Sam asks. 

Tron shutters at the question. “My former apprentice. I have no memory of him from the cycles as Rinzler, which is a good sign, but I had no idea what had become of him.”

“He had a run-in with Dyson…” Paige says. “Beck was never the same after that. He tries to maintain our faction with me, but he gets exhausted so quickly…”

“Sounds like me, before I was healed,” Tron mutters just loudly enough for Paige to hear without letting Sam or the other programs on the sailer know.

“So Beck helps run your area,” Sam clarifies.

“Yes, but mostly from his office in the garage. A program named Mara runs the garage’s business side, from the main office, but Beck and I have another one for running the faction side of things.”

“How many other major factions of note?” Sam asks.

“Well, probably about three,” Paige says. 

Sam puts his head in his hands. “So I really got my work cut out for me there,” he mutters.

“The capital was easy, I already gained control of it for you,” Tron says. “Your turn.”

“Good luck, User,” Paige says. “You’ll have the garage behind you. We kind of morphed into a revolutionary group all our own, after a while.”

The solar sailer coasts into the station, and Shaddox leaves quickly to join the survey teams; Paige follows Tron, who’s glued to Sam’s side.

“I heard something in the End Of Line, about revolution,” Sam says. “Some guy named Bartik was there to talk to Zuse. One of yours?”

Paige nods. “I know what happened. Hopper, Bartik’s right hand man, made it out and back to us.” 

“I’m glad,” Sam says awkwardly. “You’re a better leader here than I am. I’ve been a CEO for all of two weeks, and that’s not… the kind of life-or-death situation you’ve got people who trust you through. I definitely admire you for that? And we’ve only just met.”

“Thank you,” Paige says. “I’m not sure what a CEO is, exactly?”

“It’s like… an admin for a company? We manage business for one big company and control who does what, and stuff.” Sam kicks his foot. “My dad did it, years ago. I’m doing it now. I don’t know what I’m going to do about the time difference between here and home, though. God knows Dad could have handled it better.”

“The time difference?” Paige asks.

Tron laughs from Sam’s right. “Scipio was so confused when Sam explained it to him.”

“I’m not going to do the whole thing again, you just have to know that what feels like, um, one millicycle for me is fifty millicycles for the Grid. So it’s hard to devote a lot of time to _here_ , because of how busy I am on both sides.” Sam sighs dramatically. “It’d be so much easier if the time difference were the other way around. Oh well.”

“As long as you’re helping in some capacity, Sam, we’re capable of doing a lot ourselves,” Tron assures him. 

“That makes me feel a bit better,” Sam says, staring up at the shorter towers of Gallium. “This place could use a little User power though, huh? Needs some love?”

“It definitely does,” Paige says. “The whole Grid’s been decaying the past two cycles.”

“I wonder how that bridge is going, though?” Sam says. “I kinda want to see how that works.”

“We can head over there now,” Tron says. “We should be on our way to Argon as soon as possible, really.”

The jagged edges of where the bridge stood are now filled in, a wireframe road spanning the chasm. A few wireframe columns line either side, clearly setting the bridge up to be a suspension. Argo and Eva wave from where they’re working on solidifying the support beams into a proper bridge.

“Well, that was fast,” Sam declares. “You two do good work.”

“Rezzing the wireframe from Shaddox’s plans was no big deal,” Eva explains.

Argo continues. “It’s filling it in that presents all the trouble.”

“You can cross, carefully, if you’re on foot,” Eva says. “The wireframe won’t hold much more than that.”

Sam thanks her and tosses a thumbs-up at the two construction programs before stepping to the edge of the solid ground. He turns to face the assembled programs behind him. “Okay,” he says. “Who’s coming?”

Tron begins to speak, but Sam continues. “Tron, you cover the whole grid. You’re with me. Paige, you’re part of the Argon group, so you too. Shaddox and the builders will stay here in Gallium… any other security? Scipio needs to stay here in _your_ absence, Tron.”

“I agree,” Tron chimes in. “Scipio is actually in charge of security in the Tron City and Gallium region. We might be able to borrow one of the other three security programs.”

“Maybe Barca?” Sam suggests. “She’s seen Argon and Bismuth recently. Probably knows the territory better.”

“Yes,” Tron replies. “In addition, Ajax and Hector work better as a team than either of them do with Barca. They’ll stay with Scipio.”

“Do we need anyone else?” Sam asked. “I think everyone else is needed here.”

“No, we just have to find Barca,” Tron concludes. He stiffens up, eyes flashing blue for an instant, and then returns to his usual pose. “I pinged them to meet us at the bridge.

“You pinged them?” Sam asks, fascinated. “How does that work? Can you ping me?”

Tron blinks again, but he staggers back, alarmed. “Never ask me to do that again,” Tron says. “It rebounded. I can’t ping a User.”

Sam frowns. “Damn. I feel like that’d be useful. But, like, how does it work?”

Tron shrugs. “I don’t know how to explain it. How do we hear? How do we see?”

Sam pouts, but two lightcycles come roaring up to the bridge intersection and fold back up into batons. 

“You said to meet you here, Tron?” Scipio says as Barca follows him. 

“Yes,” Tron says, snapping into a commanding tone of voice. “Sam, Paige and I are leaving for Argon. You’ll be in fully in charge of running Tron City and Gallium’s security again in my absence.”

“Users help me,” Scipio swears under his breath. “This arrangement’s only been working with you to help me, Tron, I wasn’t written for administration.”

Tron looks apologetic. “I’m sorry, but I have to assist Sam, and he has to help get the Outlands cities running smoothly again. And we need to take Barca with us to help.”

Scipio looks gutted. “But she just got back! I— _we_ haven’t seen her in a quarter of a cycle! You’re leaving me here, alone, to do a job I’m _not programmed to do,_ and expanding that job as well?”

“You’re not alone, you have Ajax and Hector,” Tron offers feebly. 

“Why can’t you just take one of them?” Scipio tries. 

“You know why.”

Scipio throws his hands up in the air in frustration. “Frag it! You know what, Tron? No one wants another Clu situation, but _we need an admin._ ”

“Well,” Tron supplies, “Now that we have a User again he can accomplish those kind of tasks.”

“I sure glitching hope so,” Scipio spits. “Now was that all?”

“Yes, you can return to your present task,” Tron says. “We’re heading out now, Barca.”

“Can you give me a microcycle to say goodbye?” Barca asks quietly, hand brushing Scipio’s. 

Tron nods solemnly, and turns away. Sam watches in confusion as the two security programs draw in close to each other, eyes rapidly flashing in a clear indication of many pings being sent, before they separate, Scipio driving away on his lightcycle. 

“Let’s head out, then,” Barca says.

The river rushes by underneath the four as they walk over the glowing, transparent beams. “Was Scipio trying to swear?” Sam whispers to Tron, in front of him.

“He was swearing,” Tron replies. “I assume Users’ swears are a bit different?”

“I should teach him some,” Sam says, mischief glinting in his eyes.

“He swears enough, Sam,” Tron says. “Don’t make it worse.”

“Yeah, also that moment with him and Barca was a little weird, what was that?”

Tron keeps walking silently.

“What?” Sam asks. “Did I say something wrong? Is it private or something? Oh, shit, are they like _together?_ ”

“Shit?” Tron wonders aloud, turning his head to stare back at Sam. “What is—”

Sam looks delighted. “You swore! Oh my god, I can’t believe that just happened!”

Tron misplaces a foot in his confusion, and nearly falls off the beam into the roaring water below. For a split second, Tron’s entire being is nothing but all-consuming panic.

“I got you,” Sam says, grabbing for Tron’s arm. 

Tron straightens up and looks Sam right in the eye. “Thank you,” he says, before reluctantly breaking their arm contact and continuing to inch across the beams. “And to answer the question I think you were asking, Barca and Scipio _are_ a dedicated pair.”

“Oh, like a couple,” Sam says. “Well then. Geez. I feel a little bad separating them now. Didn’t he say they hadn’t seen each other in a quarter cycle? That’s what, like three months? Oof.”

“We all know why it has to be done,” Tron says. “If we can get things in order quickly, it’ll be best for everyone.” He steps off the beam onto the other shore, solid ground relieving his fears as the energy within him flows more slowly. 

Sam hops down beside him, feet hitting the cracked edges of the road already filled with glowing wireframe. “Let’s get moving, then.”

Paige and Barca hit the ground on the other side, and four lightcycles race off into the Outlands.

It’s a few hours’ drive, as far as Sam can figure. He and Tron set a breakneck pace, both riders well practiced in their own vehicles, and though the insane speed blows Sam’s mind, it’s exhilarating. Barca and Paige keep up behind, though they’re unwilling to get too close. 

Sam launches himself over the peak of a hill as they climb into the mountains surrounding Argon, and he realizes they’ve crested the peak as the glittering bay city lays itself out below him, alight in a rainbow of color. 

Just as Paige promised, the city is awash in six large swathes of color across the side of the mountain, with many smaller patches iridescent between them. 

Sam’s lightcycle slams roughly back down onto the road, and he screeches to a stop to let Tron and the others catch up; they’d braked, knowing the size of the hill in advance. 

Paige laughs at him. “I thought we were about to see you sprawled out in cubes, User!” 

“I’ve jumped hills on bikes plenty of times before, don’t you worry!” Sam calls back to her. “Would I even break into cubes if I got killed?” Sam mutters to himself. “I _can_ bleed here. Hey, Tron! What do you call the cubes?”

“Voxels,” he replies. “Please don’t become them.”

“Promise I’ll be careful,” Sam assures him. 

Paige takes the lead as they begin their descent into the city hollowed into the side of the mountain.

As they coast by a deep circular pit on the southeastern edge of the city, main features awash in orange but iridescent in variety below the surface, Paige glares at it, muttering something under her breath.

“That Purgos?” Sam asks, pulling alongside her lightcycle. 

“Yeah,” Paige replies. “It’s really annoying how it’s not far from the main highway to Gallium.”

“Why would it have ended up there?”

“It was the start of Argon, when the city was new. The rest expanded from there,” Paige said. “Then Purgos became… that.”

“Chances of us passing by without an incident?” Sam asks.

“Pretty good, Purgos is the most self-sufficient territory,” Paige says. “They don’t come out of their pit often. Though when they do…”

Sam frowns. “I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

They veer through the fringes of three smaller territories in varying shades of blue and green before coming to the edge of an acidic yellow one. 

“This is new,” Paige says, pulling to a stop. “I don’t like the look of this.”

Tron and Barca both peer at the yellow circuitry. Barca shrugs. “Looks… almost viral?”

“Just like Abraxas,” Tron confirms. “I was there for that incident. I don’t want to risk bringing Sam through the territory of a possible virus.”

“So we go around,” Paige says. “Let’s hope it’s not too big.”

It gives way much farther than Paige hoped. 

“Are we by the docks?” Tron asks, staring at the pink lights glittering in front of them.

“I hate this part,” Paige says. “We have to go straight through this one.”

It’s been smooth sailing for longer than Sam expected before the revving of lightcycles on either side alert them that they’re being watched.

Three drive in front of them, ribbons active. The path is blocked. A program in pink circuits—no doubt this gang’s leader—gets out of her cycle, leaving it rezzed behind her, and calls out, “This is _our_ territory, Green! Who sent you, Doomjuice?”

“ _Doomjuice_?” Sam asks Tron, struggling to keep his laughter in.

“Glitch off, Perl,” Paige says lazily, standing from her own bike. Sam notices her flick up some very distinctive wings on the sides of her helmet. “Just passing through. Our little agreement is still valid.” Paige pauses, takes in the wild look in Perl’s eyes, flitting from Tron to Barca to Sam’s helmeted faces. “Isn’t it?”

“P-Paige!” Perl stammers. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I saw you less than a dozen millicycles ago.”

“Did you now?” Perl says. “Things change… so fast here in Argon, these cycles.”

“Indee—”

“Yeah, you wanna tell us how that whole yellow zone cropped up basically overnight?” Sam asks. 

Perl looks at him. “And who are you?” Paige opens her mouth to speak, but Perl holds up a finger. “I asked him.”

“Uhhh…” Tron’s looking directly at him expectantly. What does he want Sam to say? “You’ll find out soon enough?”

“I suppose you’re not wrong,” Tron mutters. 

“Whoever he is, you’d better get him back to your garage before Doomjuice realizes there’s another important program in town,” Perl says. “Get out of here, seriously. You never came my way, yeah? And a warning: they’re expanding in your direction.”

Paige frowns, but leads their group on towards her safe zone.

The garage by the sea is a beautiful building, in Sam’s opinion. Tron is eyeing the water like Clu himself could rise out of the waves at any moment, but Sam figures it’s only to be expected. “Easy there,” Sam says, grabbing the hand Tron won’t stop twitching, as if to draw his disc. 

Tron looks down at their intertwined fingers. Sam swings his arm back and forth a bit, and says, “Just roll with it, man.”

Tron smiles in return, and Sam breaks the tension. “C’mon, let’s go meet Beck. I’ve heard great things.”

The cavernous garage, built for containing whole squadrons of tanks and helicopters, is halfway filled with crates and cots, a shelter center for programs in the splintered city of Argon.

“Paige’s back!” a program calls, prompting deafening cheers. Tron sinks into himself, trying to hide in the crook of Sam’s arm; his hand in Sam’s tightens into a crushing hold. 

“Hey, hey, no freaking out,” Sam mutters. “We’re gonna get out of the crowd in a… microcycle.”

Another program in white and teal bounds up to them. “We got a few more staying with us, Paige?”

“Not exactly, Zed,” Paige says. “You remember Barca, from when she passed through the last two times.”

“Of course! Good to see you again. But I was talking about these two in the dedicated pairing.”

Sam trips over his tongue. “Oh. Um. We’re not. Yeah. He’s just freaking out a bit.”

Tron musters his voice. “Good to see you again as well, Zed.”

Zed’s eyes bug out. “Tron?”

“Yes, it’s me,” Tron says. 

“You’re not—um.”

“Orange anymore?” Tron says with a glint in his eye. “No. You have this one to thank for that.” He elbows Sam in the side to a protestation of ‘ow!’

“I’m Sam Flynn.” He holds out the hand not clutched in Tron’s. “The new User in town.”

Sam didn’t think it was possible, but Zed’s eyes manage to open even wider. 

A crowd has gathered around them, whispering furiously. “Oh, uh, hey, can we keep it quiet that the two of us are here?” Sam calls out. “Pretend like you never saw us.”

A vaguely familiar program turns away from him. “I recognized you on sight, but maybe it was just deja-vu… I mistook you for someone I once saw at the End Of Line.”

Sam turns to Paige. “I’ve met him?”

“That’s Hopper,” Paige says in answer. 

“Ah,” Sam says. It’s disconcerting to see a program he’s met before. Everyone he _properly_ met on his first trip into the Grid is gone or changed; Tron isn’t Rinzler anymore, Quorra’s back in the analog world with Sam, and he’s heard talk that the End Of Line blew up with its owner and his right-hand siren inside. All the new faces help him separate Old Grid from New Grid, but Hopper’s presence blurs the lines.

It’s a good reminder of why he’s here.

“So where’s the main office here?” Sam asks as Tron lets Barca wander off to talk with other programs.

It’s upstairs, and Sam rides the elegant elevator up the side of the wall with Tron and Paige, marvelling at its technological prowess. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he murmurs.

“I suppose so,” Tron says. “I saw it some when the garage joined the uprising, officially, before I was…”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “You don’t have to say it, if you don’t want to.”

Tron steels himself, letting go of Sam’ hand and straightening up imperceptibly as the elevator opens. “It’s going to be strange, seeing Beck again,” he remarks.

“Good strange though, right?” 

“I hope so,” Tron says.

“Paige! Hey!” A woman calls from the big center office. 

“This is Mara, she runs the garage,” Paige introduces. “Mara, this is Sam Flynn.”

Mara gapes as well. “It’s an honor,” she says. “Beck’s in the strategy office… as usual. You’re probably looking for him. Good luck, Sam Flynn—and don’t think I didn’t notice you, Tron! I’m glad you’re… doing better.”

“Thank you, Mara,” he says. “It’s nice to see you all again.”

“Go do what you do best and protect the Grid,” Mara says. “Beck’s been waiting for you.”

The other office down the hall is where Paige leads them next. There’s one program in it, hunched over an array of screens, peering at maps and lists with his head in his hands. He looks young everywhere but his eyes, which belie his hundreds of cycles’ worth of fighting Clu. Those eyes immediately snap up to see Paige in the doorway. The frown etched into his face softens into a gentle smile. “You’re back,” he says. “Thank the Users.”

Paige glances awkwardly at Sam, who’s broken into a sheepish expression halfway between a grin and a grimace.

“About that,” Paige says. “A lot’s happened. Barca told us Tron was alive and bringing the Grid back together while waiting for the User to return and help fix things?”

Beck looks confused. “Yes?”

Tron and Sam step out from behind Paige, into the office. “Hello, Beck,” Tron says. 

Beck’s jaw drops and he stands, slowly. “I hadn’t fully believed it until I saw it—you’re healed _again_? I heard from Barca you were almost as roughed-up as you were when we met.”

“A little User power goes a long way,” Tron says. “This is Sam Flynn.”

“Nice to meet you, Beck,” Sam replies. 

Beck hobbles out from behind the desk, and Sam sees a spiral of exposed voxels lining the edges of a gash up Beck’s left leg. He’s in bad shape, and the scars are present on other parts of his body as well.

“Jesus,” Sam blurts out. “Do you want me to take care of some of that?”

“I’ve tried healing it myself already,” Paige explains.

Sam rolls his eyes. “I could get rid of the Rinzler code, I can probably do at least a little for Beck, right?”

“Do we have time?” Paige asks. 

“Sure, I still have… plenty more millicycles left. Enough to get a whole milli’s rest here before figuring out the next step for Bismuth afterwards. I can take a look at your code before I need to sleep, and we’ll probably still have time to go over, like, maps and stuff,” Sam says, shrugging. “I’ve been awake for, what? Seven hours? I have around seven left, probably. Maybe one or two less. I’ve been pushing myself pretty hard lately.” 

Beck nods. “What is that gonna entail? Looking at my code to fix me, I mean.”

Tron looks at him in awe. “A User Update. Before Sam came back I hadn’t had one in so long.”

Sam nods. “I sit with your disc, look at your base code, and make edits where there’s a massive problem that needs fixing. You can also ramble at me about what you’re doing or what else I need to be doing after fixing your scars, I definitely don’t need silence to work.”

“If you’re sure it’s not an imposition,” Beck says. 

“I wouldn’t have offered otherwise!” Sam beams. “I’m here to rebuild the Grid. The Grid needs leaders. You’re an important program, Beck.”

“Okay,” Beck says, sitting back down before offering his disc to Sam, the barest hint of hesitation in it. 

Sam takes it and sprawls out on the floor. “There’s a chair right there,” Tron says, pointing at one of the spares lined up for when Beck and Paige need to present information to other programs. Sam ignores him and starts to work. 

“Users,” Tron mutters. He picks up Sam by the armpits and deposits him on a chair. Sam keeps on reading code.

Paige sits at her own desk across from Beck’s. “So I’ve been gone for barely a millicycle and this massive new yellow territory's cropped up? Care to explain that?”

Beck sighs deeply. “It’s been there for some time, but we never cared much about it until now. Some timing its leader’s got. Users know who they are.”

“No I don’t,” Sam quips.

Tron shoots a look at Sam, who’s already re-immersed himself in the code of Beck’s disc. 

Paige clears her throat. “Anyway. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the program Perl mentioned. She stopped us going through her territory like normal, but she looked terrified. Whoever this Doomjuice is—”

A snicker from Sam.

“What?” 

“Nothing, nothing. Sorry. Carry on.”

“Whoever they are,” Paige says, glancing at Sam for a reaction, “they’ve probably been planning this for a while.”

Beck pulls two maps of Argon forward. “These two are three millicycles apart, from now to three millicycles ago.” A third map joins them. “And this one was from eighteen millicycles ago. On this one, the territory in question is… here.”

Tron and Paige lean in to see one of the smallest chunks of light on the map, marked in a shining bright green.

“Fifteen millicycles later it looks like this,” Beck says, indicating an area that’s gone chartreuse and tripled in size. 

Tron blinks in shock. “That’s quite the change.”

“Yes, it _is,_ and it’s abnormally fast. But the next one is even _more_ dramatic,” Beck says. “Not gonna lie, it is fun being the one to give _you_ information, Tron.” He points to the third map and the change is obvious. The chartreuse becomes the virulent yellow they’d seen earlier, the borders creep outwards even faster, and the size of it swallows up a few small nearby sections. It’s double the size it was on the middle map, abutting their bright aqua section along nearly half its border. 

“I don’t like how close they are to us,” Paige says. 

“And I think our viral suspicions are confirmed,” Tron says. Beck and Paige both look expectantly for more. “If it weren’t a viral case the territory would have been yellow from the start, but that sort of color change in a program indicates viral tendencies emerging, and if I am correct in assuming that the territories reflect the circuitry of their leaders, this reflects on this Doomjuice program accordingly.”

“So the system’s got a virus?” Sam says. “I should probably look at that from the outside next time I get a chance.”

“I was about to suggest that,” Tron says. 

Beck stares at them. “I would not have thought of that.”

Tron laughs, short and clipped. “You’ll get used to dealing with Users eventually.”

“So Doomjuice is a new threat. We’ll have to work around them in the next step,” Sam says. “But that is tomorrow’s problem. Today I want to finish this and learn a bit more about what the Grid’s like. By the way, Beck, I figured out how your injuries look in the code.”

“Can you fix them?” Beck asks eagerly.

“Most of them, at least,” Sam says. “Maybe all. But don’t get your hopes up. The ones I feel confident I can fix just have too many spaces in the notation, presumably where the disc cut you. There’s also a weird-looking kinda-viral subroutine that’s stopping you from healing normally, but that’s easy to get rid of.” 

He taps the hologram of code. “There, see? That’s the subroutine gone. You probably could heal the rest automatically, but that’d take time we don’t have. I’ll manually fix what I can and leave the rest to you.”

Paige and Beck fill in Tron of the minutiae of the past thousand cycles in Argon, but Sam only catches bits of it as he works patching the holes. He listens intently to the descriptions of the early uprising, but can’t bear the idea of hearing what happened after Clu came to Argon, so he focuses more intently on the code in front of him.

The hours slip by in glowing blue characters before Sam’s eyes, and he finds himself yawning into the code again. 

“You should sleep,” Tron says.

Sam looks up, eyelids drooping. “ _You_ should sleep.”

“I slept ten millicycles ago, I don’t need to sleep for another eleven at least.”

“Tha’s weird,” Sam says. “You should sleep.”

“C’mon, you two,” Beck says, “We’ve got some space for Sam to sleep upstairs in privacy. Zed set one up for you when you got here.”

“That’s right, Sam, for _you_ to sleep.”

The bedroom Beck leaves them in is better equipped than Tron’s, with not just a bed but storage shelves and a desk cluttered with engine pieces and mechanical curiosities. Sam loses himself in a pile of pistons, staring at the designs, and Tron has to bodily drag him to the bed, finding himself in a new position as he leans over and tucks in the User to sleep. Sam’s asleep from the moment his head hits the pillow, User-white circuits dimming to a softer glow. Tron smiles, standing to leave, but he’s stopped. 

Sam’s hand is clamped around his wrist. Tron tries to pry his fingers up, but each one comes back down as soon as he moves on. Tron tugs, but Sam’s grip is too strong.

“Frag it, Sam,” Tron mutters and sits on the edge of the bed, then slides under the sheets next to Sam. 

He guesses he could use the fresh reflexes if there’s a virus in play, after all. And where better to protect the User than right by his side?

Sam hums in contentment and his death grip on Tron’s wrist releases, Sam’s arm gently curling around him.

Sam wakes, warm and content with… someone in his arms? Someone with _really_ defined muscles, and glowing clothes—

He’s on the Grid, and he slept with Tron. Right. Some part of Sam’s brain cracks a wordless joke. _Not ‘sleep-with-him like_ that, _dumbass,’_ he tells himself.

“You’re awake,” Tron says. 

“Did you sleep at all?” Sam asks, voice rough. 

“Exactly a millicycle,” Tron says, sitting up. “You were asleep for approximately 1.1 millicycles.”

“So like nine hours,” Sam translates. He attempts to sit up, but flops dramatically back onto the bed. “Okay. God. Why am I still exhausted?”

Tron frowns. “I just realized you haven’t had any energy in millicycles. We should get some for you before we discuss the plan. I apologize for the oversight, I’m… unused to having to remind Users to take care of themselves.”

“Because Dad never stayed longer than a millicycle,” Sam fills in. “That’s okay. I should have known myself, it’s my own damn fault.”

Mara pokes her head into the room with a quick knock. “Oh! Sorry to intrude. I heard you were awake and wanted to let you know that Beck and Paige are ready whenever you are.”

“Can you bring some energy for Sam to the office?” Tron asks, and thinks again. “And a little for myself as well.”

“Sure thing!” Mara says, and disappears. 

Sam groans and drags himself into a sitting position. “Let’s go, then. No use waiting.”

“You’re ready?” Tron asks, standing to let Sam out. 

Sam gets up, swaying for a moment. Tron steadies him with a hand on his arms. “Just need my morning coffee,” Sam quips. 

“What’s coffee?” Tron asks, hand hovering protectively behind Sam as they walk down the hall. 

“The closest thing Users have to energy,” Sam says. “Lots of users drink it right after they wake up. Myself included— Hey, Beck!”

“Sleep well?” Beck asks. 

“Slept great, thanks to this guy.” Sam claps Tron on the shoulder before breaking out into a yawn. 

Mara arrives with a container of energy under her arm. “Okay! I’m sorry I was busy the last two millicycles, but Perl needed reassuring. She’s freaking out over this Doomjuice program, and wants protection for when they, quote, ‘inevitably’ come for her.”

“I mean, Tron thinks they’re a virus,” Beck says.

Tron takes the energy, pours some for Sam and hands it to him. “I noticed that their territory changed color over time to yellow.”

Mara frowns. “And the territory color matches the leader.”

“So Paige… isn’t the leader?” Sam asks. “She was kinda speaking for you guys in Tron City.”

“No, Mara’s the leader,” Beck says. “She was actually written with admin subroutines, so she gives us an advantage over most of the other groups around Argon. Paige is her second-in-command, and I just handle strategy. Paige does that too, but she does most of the hard work.” He gestures to his leg.

Sam frowns. “That’s still like that?”

Beck’s disc is sitting where Sam left it the previous night. “I didn’t know if you were finished or not, and I didn’t want to interrupt it if you weren’t.”

“Nah, go ahead, it should be fine. It was a relatively easy series of errors to fix once I understood how they’d happened,” Sam says. “Not like writing something from scratch.”

Beck grabs and syncs his disc; Tron watches intently as he clutches the desk in a grimace, fresh voxels lighting up to fill the gashes. 

Beck looks down at himself in wonder as the sync completes. “I’m healed…” he says. “Thank you, Sam Flynn.”

“Just Sam,” he says, sipping his energy. “This stuff’s nice, you know. I wish it existed in the User world.” 

“So,” Beck says, changing the subject. “Tron told me yesterday when you were pretty distracted that the plan is to reopen the train line to Bismuth.”

“Is that the plan?” Mara asks. “The train station isn’t in our territory, it’s in this one,” she says, tapping a large viridian area on the map. 

Beck shrugs. “It’s definitely a step that we need to take for the recovery of the Grid, but maybe it’s something that needs to wait until Argon’s back in order.”

Mara frowns. “But I don’t like the idea of keeping Bismuth cut off like that. It’s gonna take a while for us to reunite Argon. Maybe we could form an alliance? Something a bit more stable than the agreement Paige has made with Perl? Who’s their leader, anyway?”

Beck pulls up the information on the map, and consults a list. “Eniac.”

Mara sighs. “Good, Eniac’s always been reasonable.”

Sam sighs. “This would be so much easier if Bismuth had been the city to go crazy and Argon was doing fine, but _no,_ you guys had to be the ones to do it. Alright, let’s go see Eniac.”

“And say what?” Beck asks. “Hey, we’d like access to your territory? How do we stop them from controlling the train and cutting us off?”

“Well,” Sam says. “The train needs a conductor, right? Does it have one?”

The programs in the room pause. “No,” Beck admits. “It’s been immobile for cycles now; Clu repurposed the old conductor program a cycle before he fell.”

“The train comes from Eniac and his group, the conductor from yours. Simple as that. I’ll have to write a program from scratch, but that’s not too hard, I’ve already done it once this trip into the Grid,” Sam says. “I’d need to get a good look at the train’s code first to see what kind of driver it’ll be compatible with, and work from there.”

“Then I’d suggest leaving as soon as possible,” Beck says. “Paige isn’t back yet from her mission—”

“I was wondering where she was,” Sam says. “What’s going on there?”

Beck frowns. “She’s sneaking into Doomjuice’s territory to find out more about their intentions and capabilities.”

“Great, corporate espionage,” Sam jokes. “Just her?”

“Yeah, a solo mission is sneakier,” Beck says. 

Tron smiles. “So you _did_ learn something.”

“But,” Mara cuts in, “though I defer to Beck’s judgement, I think this mission to talk to Eniac is less stealth, more authority. I need to go, to talk leader to leader, and Tron and Sam need to go as well.”

“What about me?” Beck says. “I have an opportunity to do something important outside this room for the first time in cycles. I’m coming too.”

“It’s well known that you were injured, right? Paige is the muscle?” Sam asks, getting a nod from Beck. “We’ll scare the shit out of Eniac when you show up.”

Tron grins. “That’s the word from the bridge.”

“Yeah, man!” Sam says. “I’ll teach you more User words later. Just you though. You gotta have an advantage over Scipio.”

Tron laughs. “So we go to Eniac and strike a deal,” he says. 

Sam suddenly frowns. “I have a question. What does Eniac get out of this? We ask him to have access to his territory, we keep control of the train, and he gets… what? The undying gratitude of a User? Are we just going to go up to him and ask pretty please?”

Tron shrugs. “What choice do we have?”

Mara nods. “It’s settled then. We leave in 12 microcycles.”

Sam glances at Tron. _How many minutes?_ he mouths at Tron. Tron holds up five fingers in response. Sam shoots him a thumbs-up and follows Mara out of the room. 

“You’re in charge while we’re gone, Zed,” Mara says into the doorway of the main office as she passes by.

“Cool! Where are you going?” Zed calls, following after. 

“We’re going to talk with Eniac,” Mara says. 

“Remind me of who he is?” Zed says. “Should I know him? I know that name. Is he one of ours?”

“No, he’s another faction leader—”

“Oh, the one by the trains! Right!” Zed says. “Ok, good luck!”

Sam makes his way downstairs to wait for the others to get ready, staring out over the sea. It glitters, here, not like the rolling waves of ink out by the portal Tron plummeted into two cycles before. He tosses his lightcycle baton up into the air, spinning it end over end. It hits the corner of the step and goes bouncing away—Sam catches it as quickly as he can, and the baton splits in two, rezzing into a full cycle. 

Someone whistles nearby. “That’s a nice bike, User,” Hopper says, wandering up. “And I’d know. Cycles ago, I used to be a street racer.”

“A street racer?” Sam asks. “So are you good at modifying lightcycles? Can you show me how to get to the engine of one of these?”

“You’re a mechanic too?” Hopper says. 

“I can be,” Sam counters. “I have lots of skills.”

Hopper jogs over to a toolbox, pulls out what looks like a squared-off c-clamp and comes back to Sam. “This is what you need. Zed’s the best of us at modifying bikes—he can build one from _scratch—_ but a wrench is your best tool.”

“Looks different from a User wrench,” Sam says, taking it anyway. “How do I use it?”

“Attach it to the code!” Hopper encourages him. “Just—” He mimes turning it sideways and sticking it to the bike.

Sam copies the motion and the bike goes translucent, wireframe outlining all the pieces of the engine. His eyes go wide. “ _Cool,”_ he breathes, and reaches into it, poking at the lines. The pistons pop out of the crankshaft under his probing touch, and Sam guides them gently back into place again. 

“Having fun?” Tron asks behind him. 

“This is the best,” Sam says. “When we get back here I need to get Zed and Hopper to teach me more about modifying my lightcycle.”

“We’re heading out now,” Tron says.

Sam disconnects the wrench, the bike taking solid form again, and hands the wrench back to Hopper. 

“That one’s yours, Son of Flynn,” Hopper says, pushing it back. “We’ve got plenty.”

“Just Sam,” he repeats for what feels like the millionth time. “And thank you.”

What should be a five-minute _(twelve-microcycle?)_ jaunt over to Eniac’s territory takes twenty _(forty-eight: get used to it, Flynn)_ as they take the now-customary routes along borders.

Luckily, once the four lightcycles reach the clusters of viridian buildings they get an _escort_ to the building housing this faction’s leadership. The programs here don’t take any more kindly to intrusions than anyone else in Argon City seems to.

Eniac has an office much like Mara’s, it seems, connected to a few others’, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the reason they’re even here in the first place—a train sits motionless on the main line. The man himself stands at the window with his back to them. His disc dock is empty.

“I was told,” Eniac says, “That the four of you wanted to see me. Bold move, waltzing into my territory like that.”

He turns to face them, and his disc is in his hand. He reads the faces of the four programs, and falters. “O-oh,” he says. “Beck! You’re on your feet again! I… didn’t expect that. And… Tron. I didn’t know you were in Argon City.”

“I’m here on User’s business,” Tron says, indicating Sam. Eniac suddenly looks very pleased.

Mara, seeing this, pokes Sam in the back. “Ow,” he mutters. “I thought _you_ were doing the speaking—Hello, Eniac, my name is Sam Flynn, and I am currently working on restoring the Grid to a functional society again, helped by Tron and Mara and Beck and the others. Step one of my plan was to reconnect all four of the Grid’s cities so that no one was cut off, and since you control the only route to Bismuth, we need your hel—

“I’m in.”

Sam falters. “Excuse me?”

“I said I’m in,” Eniac says, returning his disc to his dock. “Sorry about the disc, I was just worried this would be an attack of sorts. What do you need?”

Mara steps forward. “Well, I was going to propose an alliance between our factions, first of all.”

“Sure thing,” Eniac says casually. “With that new yellow faction just south of you I imagine things are about to get… how did the Creator use to say? Hairy?”

“Did you meet him?” Sam asks. 

“Oh yes, he’s your father, isn’t he?” Eniac asks. “Once. And not personally. But I picked up enough User slang from many of my old friends. An alliance between us could be helpful in the coming cycles. I don’t know much, but it’s not going to be good. I like to think I have a ‘sixth sense’ for dangerous times.”

“We know a bit more,” Beck says. “We’d be glad to share information with an ally.”

Eniac smiles warmly. “Good. But, I only have one concern.”

Mara beams amiably. “And that is?”

“Where do you expect to find a conductor program?” Eniac asks. “If I had one in my territory, I’d have activated the train long ago.”

Tron clears his throat. “All of the conductor programs were rectified, and later derezzed in the reintegration event. However—we have a User.”

“I wanted to look at the train’s code, to figure out exactly how I’d need to write a new program,” Sam says. “No problem.”

“Indeed,” Eniac says. “Good enough for me, but whose faction will this new program belong to?”

“Ours,” Beck and Mara say in unison.

Eniac isn’t pleased, drawing into himself and hugging his arms. “Very well, if I must allow it. Ah, but imagine it, the first new program on the Grid in so many hundreds of cycles… to be the protector of them…”

“Actually, I wrote one not long ago to control the Solar Sailer,” Sam says. “So the train conductor’s going to be second.”

Eniac nods, rubbing his bicep with his other arm nervously. “I understand. So we have an alliance?”

“Agreed,” Mara says, extending her hand to shake Eniac’s.

Eniac removes his right hand from where it’s on his arm and shakes hers. Sam stares at the motion, and it’s like a circuit connects in his mind. “Oh, shit,” Sam blurts out. 

Tron immediately looks at Sam. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing!” Sam covers. “I just realized something. Nothing bad.”

Eniac looks suspiciously at him. “What did you realize?”

“Why don’t you lead me to the train so I can look at its code, Eniac? _Alone,”_ Sam insists.

Eniac is even more worried. “If it’s all the same to you, User, I’d like to have someone with us.”

“Just Sam, okay? And I need to talk to you? Just you? About secret things?” Sam tries. 

Eniac shrugs. “Okay, but I hold my disc and if you try _anything_ you’re in cubes.”

Sam holds up his hands. “Okay! Fair terms! Would I even shatter into voxels? I don’t know! Let’s not find out!”

Eniac draws his disc, leaving the blade dimmed, and gestures for Sam to follow him.

As they walk down the hall to an elevator, Sam keeps silent, hands going for his pockets, which he doesn’t actually have in his gridsuit. He almost fiddles with a baton before thinking better of it. They emerge from the elevator and keep walking, and just as they’re out on the open train platform, Sam asks, “So, who else knows you’re an ISO?”

Eniac jerks his head around and his arm with it, and Sam jumps just out of disc range. “I promise not to tell anyone!” Sam yelps. 

“How did you figure it out?” Eniac demands, disc deactivating. He transfers his disc to his left hand and nervously rubs his upper arm with the other. 

“That right there!” Sam says, gesturing to Eniac’s nervous tic. “I live with an ISO now, she does that when she’s nervous or bored or just deep in thought. Rubbing the ISO mark, I mean.”

“You live with an ISO?” Eniac asks. “In the User world?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “My Dad thought Quorra was the last ISO left, so he protected her with his life. She came out into the User world with me.”

Eniac startles. “Quorra. I didn’t expect that _she_ had lived.”

“For the record, I’m glad Dad was wrong that she was the only one left,” Sam says gently. “How many are there, actually?”

“I don’t know exact numbers,” Eniac says, shoulders slumping. “I’m here because I tried to help ferry fleeing ISO’s out into a hidden safe house deep in the Outlands. I sent so many on beyond me, and stayed in the hopes I could help more. Eventually I became trapped.”

“So that’s why you’re so eager to get out to Bismuth,” Sam says. “One step closer to the others?”

“Yes,” Eniac says, looking Sam in the eyes. “I recognize I now have a responsibility here that I can’t abandon, but when Argon no longer needs these… divisions, these factions… I’m going east to find my people again.”

“I promise you,” Sam says, hand on Eniac’s shoulder. “When I can, I will come back and personally fix things in Argon, and free you from your responsibilities here.”

“When you can,” Eniac says, “you have my undying gratitude. But a request: don’t tell anyone about the others, or me? I don’t want to risk prematurely revealing their existence.”

“Absolute silence,” Sam says. “Pinky promise. I’ll keep connecting Bismuth and Carbon, but I don’t know _anything_ about _any settlements_ beyond Carbon.”

Eniac smiles relieved. “Thank you, Sam. Now. A train needs a conductor?”

Sam starts back towards the train again. “Yes. By the way, props to you for managing to stay in hiding this long. That was the last thing. Train time.”

Sam gets to work reading code, and Eniac turns around to gesture the others down to meet them. 

“What’s the verdict?” Eniac asks.

“Not that hard,” Sam says. “I can work from the same base I started from for Sol, but I’ll adapt it to land rail travel instead of air beam travel. Plus, the controls are pretty similar on both vehicles, the train just requires a little more advanced preparation. I’ll be working for a while though. It might be best to head back to the garage to work there. After I…” Sam makes a copy of the train code to his disc. “There. I’ll see you soon, Eniac.”

Eniac watches him go as Mara, Beck, and Tron appear in the doorway to the train platform. “Goodbye, Sam, and thank you!”

“You’re welcome!” Sam calls back.

Sam and the others return to the garage, and Sam disappears to study the code, stealing a desk in the strategy office. He emerges periodically for breaks, sipping energy like coffee, learning digital engineering with Zed, or patching his sporadic Grid history with Beck and Paige, returned from her mission. 

“I wish someone could look this over for me,” Sam gripes. “It’s so much pressure. There’s so much pressure riding on Eos here.” He gesticulates wildly at the screen hovering in front of him. 

Tron carefully doesn’t look. “Shame we’re all programs.”

“Frag it, I’ll take a look,” Paige says. “I might be able to spot something, I can fix minor errors in code, after all.”

She scans the lines Sam has written, Sam helpfully scrolling. “I can’t see anything blatantly wrong.”

Sam shrugs. “Then I guess I’ll run it,” he says. “Run their code…”

A new program fizzles into being, yellow like Mara’s secondary circuits. “Hey, Eos,” Sam says. 

“Hello, User,” Eos replies. They look confused, disoriented, but as the other programs watch it all comes back to them. “My directive is to transport other programs on… a train? Where is the train?”

“Not here,” Sam says. “But close by. A friend of mine controls the train station, he’ll be very happy to meet you.”

“Oh, so you and Eniac are friends now?” Tron asks indignantly.

“Yes,” Sam says. “We are. Anyway, welcome to the Grid, Eos, I was thinking we’d head out for Bismuth in two millicycles? Call me selfish but I want another good night’s sleep here before we go. And just one free millicycle to appreciate the Grid. And also a lightcycle.”

“That’s within your rights, Sam,” Tron says. “Paige, would you take Eos, find Zed, and help get them settled?”

Paige nods, taking the new-rezzed program with her as she goes. 

Sam sighs. “We’ll need to debrief her and Beck on Doomjuice, when he’s back, but that shouldn’t take any longer than one of my free eight hours, right?”

“No, Sam,” Tron says. “I admire your work ethic, but you’re entitled to take breaks. Your father was never this attentive to our issues for this long.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that,” Sam says. “Tron, you lived here in Argon for a while, take me somewhere with a view.”

Tron thinks for a moment, then springs to his feet. “Follow me.”

They bid a quick goodbye and get on their lightcycles, zipping through small territories and around large ones, back out the other side of Argon entirely into the southeastern mountains. Tron pulls alongside Sam, yells “Trust me!” into the wind, and darts forward over a chasm in the ground, landing safely on the other side. 

Sam, trusting implicitly, guns the cycle and flies across the gap to land beside Tron. “What’s next?” he asks, breathless. “Just the space to ride like this is incredible!”

They ride up to a mountain rising like a spire out of the Outlands, bridge rezzing into existence as Tron drives onto it. Sam follows. 

The elevator platform reveals to Sam a spacious room with massive windows and screens, ghostlike in silence.

Tron shakes like a leaf beside him. “I’m no longer sure coming here was a good idea,” he says. 

“Why not?” Sam asks, grabbing a hand to steady him. 

“This was… where I lived, in my first injury. Where I started the Uprising. Where I met Beck,” Tron says. He casts a hand around the room. “This was my command center, my pale imitation of The City’s headquarters building.”

Sam holds onto Tron’s hand, but steps out towards the nearest window in the hopes Tron will follow. He does. 

The whole of Argon City is laid out before him, engulfed in a rainbow of colors. Sam tries to imagine it a uniform blue, as Tron would have known it so long ago. “It’ll be blue again,” he murmurs. “Promise you that, Tron. It’s so beautiful. Thank you for showing me.”

They slip back into the garage, later, and pretend like they’d never been gone.

Sam wanders upstairs to find Beck and Paige worriedly discussing something in the strategy office. “Hey guys, so what’s the news on Doomjuice? Comparing notes?” 

“Yes,” Paige replies. “We couldn’t figure out much more than we already knew through rumor.”

Beck pipes up. “Not many programs recognize me anymore—Eniac has a long memory—and I used that to my advantage to talk to some programs under Doomjuice’s eye. That’s the best way to describe it, really; they leave the programs in their territory alone, and everyone else in the city leaves their programs alone out of fear. The programs in Doomjuice’s territory, in turn, can just live there. They’re mostly worried about what the catch might be.”

“The catch,” Sam says, tapping his chin. “There always seems to be one.”

“All I got was that Doomjuice is a deeply unpredictable program,” Paige says. “We can’t know what they’re going to do until they do it.”

“Lovely,” Sam says. “And that’s it?”

Beck and Paige nod.

“Great.”

Tron walks in, spots Sam, and freezes in his tracks. “I should have known you’d try and get back to work,” he says. “This is your off-millicycle, go tinker with Zed or something. Have fun.”

Sam walks backwards to the door, saluting as he goes. “Yes sir, I was just going,” and he’s gone.

Tron sighs, putting his head in his hands. “So feel like repeating the debrief?” he asks.

“No problem, it’ll only take a minute,” Beck says.

Sam rolls his eyes at Tron’s exhausted sigh and resolves to make him smile again later. “Hey Zed? Do you have some time?”

“Sure thing! What do you need?”

It’s been hours and Sam’s got a grin on his face, picking apart the complexities of Zed’s bike’s fuel system and modifying his own in turn, when a shadow appears in—no, through—the wireframe. It’s Tron’s legs. 

“It’s time for you to sleep again, Sam,” Tron says. 

“Oh, is it?” Sam says, rubbing an eye and fiddling with the diameter of the energy injector. _Maybe if it were slightly more conical?_ “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Now, Sam,” Tron says. “Not in ten more microcycles.

“I’ll go if you come with me,” Sam bargains.

Tron frowns. “I can’t waste another millicycle sleep-cycling when I don’t need to, Sam.”

“You don’t have to stay the whole time,” Sam pleads. “Just talk to me until I’ve fallen asleep.”

Tron acquiesces. “Alright, Sam,” he says, leading the tired User upstairs. 

Sam collapses into bed, staring up at Tron’s soft glow. “You’re not too bright,” Sam says. “My circuits are really bright.”

Tron doesn’t know how to respond. “You said you’d teach me more User words?” he prompts. 

“Yeah! Like fuck,” Sam says softly. “It’s another great curse word. You can say it when you’re frustrated or angry, or you can use it with an ‘ing’ as a descriptor when something makes you frustrated or angry—or occasionally just for really strong emphasis.”

“You need to go to fucking sleep,” Tron says. 

Sam giggles. “Yeah, exactly! You picked it up fast. You can also use it to tell someone to go away in a rude way. Like Paige did to Perl.”

Tron smiles. “I like it.”

“Only because I taught you,” Sam teases. Tron doesn’t reply. “So,” Sam says. “What other kind of User things do you know?”

“Some idioms I can’t make sense of, mostly,” Tron replies. “Flynn spoke so often in comparisons which we had never experienced the other side of.”

“Like what?”

“Like ‘a piece of cake’. What is cake? And how does it relate to something not being difficult to accomplish?”

Sam thinks. “Hm. I don’t know why Users say that. We just do.”

Tron frowns. “So idioms are largely customary, beyond explanation. I’ll have to get used to it, like I got used to the different ways of expressing feelings physically, as well.”

Sam shifts onto his side to look at him closer. “How so?”

“Flynn was prone to an arm around the shoulder to express happiness, and claps on the shoulder for pride.” He casts his mind back hundreds of cycles. “On the old system, he taught my old dedicated pair, Yori, a gesture of very close affection indeed.” Tron pauses. “I was never clear on its full context.”

“What was it?” Sam asks.

In response, Tron leans down and gently kisses Sam on the lips. Sam blushes fiercely. “Oh, Tron, that’s something only for… dedicated pairs.”

“Is it now?” Tron says, a faint blush appearing on his own face. “Well.” 

Sam’s eyelids are drooping, belying the time he’s spent running around like a chicken with his head cut off, as Flynn might once have said.

“Goodnight, Sam,” Tron whispers, watching him drift off. “I’m really… fucking… glad you’re here.”

Sam wakes a millicycle later in an empty room. A glass of energy sits on the desk, glowing softly. Sam gets up to drink it and sees a hexagonal data chit beside it. Brushing it with his fingers, he activates it: _Sam, when you see this, we’re preparing to depart for Bismuth in the strategy office. -Tron_

Sam smiles, takes the chit and energy, and goes to meet Tron. 

“Good morning, programs!” he declares to the consternation of every program in the room but Tron. Beck and Paige look startled, Mara confused; Barca’s back in the room, and looking grumpy. Tron, on the other hand, merely looks amused.

Eos files in last, behind him. “Now we’re all here,” Tron says. “It’s time to form the group going on to Bismuth. Sam and I are going, of course, with Barca.”

“My place is here,” Mara adds. “That was never a question.”

“Beck and Paige, you should stay in Argon,” Tron orders. “Under different circumstances I would have asked to take one of you with us, but Doomjuice presents a threat here. We can’t afford to neglect it.”

“I’ll escort you to the train,” Paige offers. “But then I’ll return here.”

“Eos needs to drive the train,” Sam says, “so they’re coming too, then.”

“Then the five of us drive to the train station,” Paige concludes. 

“Now, I assume?” Sam says. “I’m down.”

Sam heads downstairs with his team behind him, Tron at his side, and he’s ready to take on Bismuth.

A new outcropping of yellow buildings stands in their path, halfway there, and they’re stopped to guess the best way around when a yelp sounds from the back of the convoy. Sam whirls around, stepping off his cycle—

Eos is pinned to the ground by a program Sam’s never seen the likes of before. A long black cape obscures their form, a helmet over their face with a toothy jack-o-lantern–like circuit pattern on the front, and as the program straightens up with Eos’s warm golden-circuited arm clutched firmly in their acidic yellow fingers, Sam knows he’s facing Doomjuice directly. The helmet clicks back to reveal wild eyes and hair, circuitry slowly etching its way across the program’s face.

In anger, he acts without thinking. Striding directly up to the viral program, he socks Doomjuice directly in the jaw, and they crumple to the ground. Eos steps back, Doomjuice’s hold loosened in surprise.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” Sam mutters, getting Eos firmly settled back on their own lightcycle and leaping onto his. They’re gone in an instant.

Doomjuice sits back up, fresh yellow lines blooming on their cheek where the User’s punch landed. “I’ve underestimated your tenacity, haven’t I?” Doomjuice says to themself. “Well then. Until we meet again, Sam Flynn.”

As the object of Doomjuice’s fascination disappears around the corner, he mutters to himself. “What a piece of work,” Sam spits. 

The viridian towers obscuring the train station are a sight for sore eyes, Eos in particular vibrating in anticipation. “I can’t wait,” they say, walking faster than normal with a spring in their step.

Eniac greets them on the platform. “I trust you made it alright?” he asks.

“Actually…” Paige says. 

“We kinda ran into Doomjuice on the way here and I punched them in the jaw,” Sam explains. “It’s all good.”

Eniac looks perturbed. “They came personally?”

“Yes,” Beck says. “I caught a glimpse of them from afar scouting their territory, and it was definitely them. That cape and that helmet are hard to miss.”

“They tried to separate me from the train,” Eos says as well.

Eniac frowns, worrying at his arm like usual. “Why would they want to keep us cut off from Bismuth?”

Sam shrugs. “Maybe not, how would Doomjuice have known Eos’s purpose like that?”

Eos shivers. “It doesn’t matter now, let’s just go.”

Sam nods. “All aboard!”

Eos slides into the chair at the controls like they had been there a million times, expertly bringing the circuits of the train up to their full glow again. The blue flickers into Eos’s gold, and Sam smiles at it. “Hey, the train matches the solar sailer now!”

As they pull away from the station, Eniac and Paige watch them go, wind whipping at their hair. Paige walks away before Eniac does, who watches the train until it fades into a speck on the horizon.

Sam walks up to the front of the train as they move into the tunnel under the mountains. “How far away is Bismuth?”

“About a quarter of a millicycle,” Eos says. “Carbon, if we were going that far, is half a millicycle beyond Bismuth. Very far.”

“Give me your opinion, Eos,” Sam asks. “Do you think the inter-city train line should be expanded back to Gallium? So there are more options for traveling west than just the highway?”

“I think it’s a good idea,” they respond. “I’d love to make that run as well.”

“I should be taking notes,” Sam rambles. “A highway to Bismuth would probably be a good idea as well. Maybe one from The City to Bismuth, too? As a last-resort kind of thing? Or is that too much work for too little payoff?”

“I don’t know enough about highways to answer that,” Eos responds. “Good luck deciding, though.”

Sam acknowledges it. “Thanks for the train insight, Eos,” he says, and returns to the passenger cars. 

“Two hour train ride,” Sam says, flopping down in a seat next to Tron. “What will we do?”

Tron looks up from the report he’s reading on a pad in his hands. “I’m reading what Barca brought back about Bismuth,” he says. “It looks like we’ll have a much easier time out there than in Argon.”

Sam sighs. “Good. Do you think I should start getting some programs similar to Eos running? To drive all the trains that go around Argon? I won’t run them yet, just have them ready for when Argon is one proper city again.”

“It’s good to be prepared,” Tron says. 

Sam shrugs. “I’ll get some of those written on the outside, in between this trip and the next time I can return to the Grid.” He sits still for a second more, before leaning into Tron’s side. “I’m gonna read over your shoulder.”

Tron shuts off the pad. “I just finished reading.”

“You little shit,” Sam whispers. 

Tron hands him the pad, stands up, and walks away. Sam opens it back up and flounders through the files on it before finding the one on Bismuth, and settles in to read. 

A train is far from the stealthiest vehicle in the world, so when it settles to a stop in the Bismuth train station, there’s a crowd of programs gawking at the first outside contact they’ve had in two cycles outside of Barca’s expedition. 

Sam leads the way off the train, Tron and Barca lined up behind him. Eos pulls the train away, no doubt to a nearby train shed. 

Tron looks around, and whispers ripple through the crowd— _Is that Tron? I think it is, you know it’s been said he’s always with the Users; I’ve heard there’s a User on the Grid again, do you think it’s him in the white? Maybe, he looks like the guy in the games two cycles ago—_

Sam hears it all. “Perhaps we should go somewhere more private?” he suggests, as quietly as he can for Tron’s hearing.

“I’d agree,” Tron says. “Barca, could you lead us from here?”

Barca nods, beginning to push through the crowd. “You’ll want to see their leader, right?”

“I read your report,” Sam says, following behind her. “We’re looking for a program named Univa?”

“Yes, the mysterious leader of Bismuth. She took over from another program, Mauchly, after Mauchly was derezzed in a gridbug attack. No one knows much about either of them, only that they were very close. Mauchly’s deresolution hit Univa hard, but she followed in her predecessor’s footsteps,” Barca recites. “They’re both rather unconventional but capable leaders.”

They emerge onto the street—it’s comparable to Gallium city, if Gallium were newer and shinier. The buildings don’t show the slightest sign of the deterioration so pervasive throughout the other cities; the streets, so empty in the others, are busy in Bismuth. Many programs on foot stop to watch their three lightcycles pass by—single file, at low speeds; the streets here are slightly narrower than in other cities, everything closer together. Contrary to the uniform blues of Tron City and Gallium, Bismuth is as colorful as Argon, but less disjointed; the buildings’ surfaces uniformly iridesce in the light off their blue circuits. 

One tower stands out—Barca points it out as their destination, and Sam can see why it was chosen as a hub—the tower is all sharp edges, cubes of building jutting off the sides and up like crystals. 

Barca leads them in, and the lobby bustles with programs hurrying to and fro throughout the building—it’s mostly hollow, a giant atrium reaching up all the way to where the ceiling _isn’t_. The sky is visible far above around the massive free-standing elevator in the middle, connected to each floor by two glass bridges alternating in direction.

The elevator drops them on a floor near the very top, and Sam crosses the nearest bridge through the atrium with _almost_ no thought to the staggering drop below. _They really oughta put some railings on these,_ he thinks. 

Barca leads them around the edge of the floor—railings _here_ for some reason—until they reach a desk with a program sitting behind it. 

“I’m sorry, Univa is bus—” The program looks up. “Oh. _You’re_ back. One moment please.”

The program scurries off into another room, and is back immediately. “She’ll see you,” they say.

Barca leads the way into the office, and Sam gets his first look at Univa.

She looks tired but resolute, and her left arm truncates abruptly into magenta voxels just above the elbow. “You’re back,” she says, looking Barca firmly in the eyes. 

“I am back,” Barca says. “You thought I wouldn’t be?”

“I couldn’t be sure,” Univa says. “You were forced to walk back to Argon with two of our best builders.”

“They made it safely to Gallium City, I assure you,” Barca says.

“But you brought some others with you,” Univa says. “They seem to be familiar with who I am.”

“I studied,” Sam chimes in.

“And who are you?” Univa says. 

“Sam Flynn,” he replies. 

“Flynn?” Univa asks. “The User?”

“Yes,” he says. “I’m currently trying to reunite the Grid’s cities as a first step in bringing it back to order again. Since you’re an established and respected leader here in Bismuth, your help would be invaluable.”

Univa hesitates. “So you’re taking over?”

“Not fully,” Sam says. “You’d still handle Bismuth, but Bismuth would be part of the larger system. 

She relaxes. “Good. I’ve worked hard to gain the programs’ trust, I’m not about to lose it now.”

“All the better for us!” Sam declares. “If they trust you they’ll be a bit more trusting of me and Tron.”

Univa’s eyes widen, and she swivels to face the program in question. “You’re Tron?”

“Yes,” Tron replies. “You didn’t recognize me.”

“I was newly rezzed when Clu took over the Grid,” Univa says. “I didn’t really experience at all what it was like before the Occupation.”

“But you have experience leading Bismuth after it, and that’s what matters,” Tron says. 

“So there’s some serious power back on the Grid,” Univa says. “Huh. I’m glad to have met the both of you.”

“So we’re working together now?” Sam offers, holding a hand out to Univa for her to shake.

“We are,” she accepts. 

“Would you mind taking me on a tour of Bismuth?” Sam asks. “Or if you’re too busy, having another program do it? I didn’t get to see as much of Argon as I’d have liked to, and I’d like to make up for that failing here.”

“I _have_ heard Argon’s a mess right now,” Univa says. “I do have much to do, but I feel getting to know the system’s User takes precedence.”

“Are you sure?” Sam asks. “Nothing super time-sensitive there?”

Univa shakes her head. “Shall we?”

The city is much smaller in area than the other four, reflecting its smaller population—“Before Clu, Bismuth was home to a mere million programs, now we have less than half that”—but bustles with just as much life as any other city. Sam sees its scant few sectors in a few hours, driving by buildings where programs live and work and their own small parks where some programs (young, according to Tron, with a wistful note in his voice) play a nonlethal version of the disc games Sam had been thrown into in his first moments on the Grid. One program catches a disc in the chest and goes sprawling—Sam’s heart leaps into his throat—but he only sits up and groans as his opponent does a running victory leap, pumping her fist in the air. 

“Come on, I think you’ll like this,” Univa says, beckoning them onward. “It’s one of the biggest social hubs in Bismuth city.”

A big, square building looms, with a large glowing archway inviting them inside. Sam gasps at the sight within.

A massive pool of energy stretches out through the forum, not quite waist deep. A few programs wade through it, with a few milling about around the sides in the small bar by the poolside. A spiral path much like the ones Sam saw on the lightcycle grid loops around a building and lands in the pool like a waterslide; he follows it up to the top and on the way spies a dance floor behind glass overlooking the courtyard. The roof opens up to the sky in large parts, low-hanging clouds glowing faintly with the light of the city. 

Sam is fascinated. “What is this place?” he asks. “Is it like the End Of Line for Bismuth?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Tron says in wonder. “I’ve never been able to visit here before.”

“It’s your standard Grid club with a uniquely Bismuth twist,” Univa says. “We’re built on a massive natural energy spring, and the pool is drawn directly from it.

Tron nods, but Sam’s already sprinting to the poolside. Tron and Barca snicker as he trips on the pool barrier and goes flying, sending a wave of energy onto the nearest program as he hits the water.

Sam stands, energy dripping out of his hair, and turns to Tron and Barca with a huge grin splitting his face. “C’mon!” His eyes are alight with delight—and literal light, circuits running brighter in the pool of energy, and pupils glowing a matching white. 

Tron walks over to the edge as Sam wades up to him. “Having fun?”

Sam reaches up to drag him in, but Tron takes a step back. “I don’t like swimming.”

Sam freezes. “Oh. Right. I’m sorry. Shoulda been more considerate.”

He hauls himself out of the pool, dripping from head to toe. 

“I’ll admit,” Tron says. “It’s better. For me. Because it’s so bright. Like energy should be. I’m not afraid for you, being in the pool.”

Sam stares down at the bright blue energy, glances over at the bar and the poolside tables with programs sipping glasses of energy. “Could I drink that?” he asks, pointing to the energy lapping at his toes. 

Tron shrugs. “Probably.”

Sam grins, crouching down and laying on his stomach to try and drink the energy. Memory, buried in well over a thousand cycles, tugs at the recesses of Tron’s brain, and Sam’s laughter finds itself mingled with the memories of his father’s, and Ram’s, and Tron’s own. 

He shakes it off. “Come on, Sam, there’s more to see,” Tron says. “If you’re up for it, I thought the two of us and Barca could inspect the current condition of Carbon City. It’d be a full millicycle’s worth of train ride there and back, but I think assessing its role in your plan should prove important.”

Sam stands to follow Tron, shaking the last of the energy from his hair. “Good idea! Even if we spend three hours there we’ll have enough time to get back here before sleep time again.”

“I’ll ping Eos,” Tron says.

They all meet at Bismuth Station, Eos leaning in the doorway of their train. “All aboard, programs,” they say with a smirk. “Next stop: Carbon.”

The train takes off and for half a millicycle winds up and up into the mountains Sam had passed over in a solar sailer once before. The Grid is climbing up in elevation to form the cliffs by the sea. 

The thing about Carbon is that it’s almost blindingly bright, shining bright in the shadow of a sharp peak in the mountains. “Wish I had some sunglasses,” Sam gripes in the train car as it approaches, the city visible from what feels like a mile away.

“What do they do?” Tron asks.

“Make things less bright by blocking some of the light from getting in your eyes,” Sam says. 

“Could you code some?” Tron asks. 

Sam frowns, then shrugs. “Maybe something based on your helmet material? Translucent, dark, but flat, and in frames...”

A handful of microcycles later, Sam’s grinning from behind his new sunglasses. “Graphic interfaces are nice,” he says. 

“It looks ridiculous,” Tron says, rezzing his helmet as the train slows to a stop. 

Unlike in Bismuth and Argon, there’s no formal train station—it hasn’t been planned out yet. But parts of the larger city have been planned, and that’s what’s causing the blinding glow. Most of a small city, done entirely in luminescent wireframe; everything that would, in the User world, be made of steel beams is a bright, glowing pillar, and the half-built city stands as a beacon in the Outlands because of it.

“I hope there aren’t too many gridbugs,” Barca says. “They love the light from this sort of thing. It was hell getting back to Argon from Bismuth last time because of them.”

Sam sighs. “Gridbugs?”

Tron wearily says, “Gridbugs. You’ll be dealing with them a lot. Less so, now that the ISOs aren’t around anymore.”

Sam winces. “Yeah…”

“You should stay on the train, Eos,” Tron says. 

They laugh. “No complaints here!”

The scuttles around them are quiet and distant as they stroll through what’s less of a ruined town and more of the whisper of potential for one. It’s built on the same kind of spring as Bismuth was, though it’s untapped, sitting in a small lake near the center of the town. Gridbugs cluster around it in swarms that come and go as units. 

“So that’s a gridbug,” Sam says. “I don’t like it.”

“Let’s stay far away,” Barca agrees. 

There’s one completed structure in Carbon City: the tower nestled into the side of a mountain, cliff cut into the face of the stone. The tower hangs over the glowing ghost town in a watchful way. “We could get a great look over the city from there,” Sam says. 

Tron’s already searching his disc. “I can’t find any files on the tower’s structure.”

“We’ll just have to guess, then!” Barca takes off toward the tower, Sam hot on her heels. Tron sighs, mutters, “Users help me,” and follows after.

The elevator is darkened but a few pokes from their resident User has it tapping into the spring’s power again and rising to the top of the tower.

The room itself is drab, a few darkened screens and consoles lining the walls; the important part is the door leading outside to a balcony.

“Can you get these screens up?” Barca asks. “I’d like to look into what kind of systems might have been implemented here.”

Sam obliges, restoring them to functionality, before beckoning to Tron. “C’mon, let’s go outside!”

What’s there takes his breath away. Sam was expecting to be able to look down on all of Carbon, but from the tower he can see so much more; the elevation of the mountains means he can see Bismuth sparkling clearly miles away, a faint glow to the northwest where Argon lies behind its own mountains, and far on the horizon, even the glittering beacon of Tron City.

“It’s a hell of a view,” Sam says, looking at the expanse of the Grid laid out before them.

“You know,” Tron says, leaning out over the balcony. “You’ve seen more of the system in the past eight and a half millicycles than Flynn ever did.”

Sam tears his gaze from the horizon to focus on Tron. “Ever?”

“It took too long to get out to Bismuth and Argon for Flynn to bother,” Tron says. “He was always restricted to one millicycle. And after he was trapped here he holed up in the western mountains for a thousand cycles. You came to see everything yourself.”

Sam takes Tron’s hand again, no panic necessitating it in this peaceful moment. “I’m glad you were there to see it with me. It means a lot to have you by my side, just as focused on helping everyone as I am.”

“I’m glad we could do this together as well, Sam.”

When the three descend to the bottom of the tower, they begin their walk back to the train. Nothing’s amiss until it is, a hair-raising scuttling sound echoing out of the darkness.

“Gridbugs,” Tron says, half swear and half statement of fact. “Barca, take the User. Sam, _go.”_

Barca tugs Sam by the arm towards the train as Tron draws his disc, and Sam yells, “Tron! Come on!”

Barca tugs something from her belt and tosses it to Tron; he catches and arms the grenade, tossing it into the thick of the swarm rapidly advancing on him. Tron keeps cutting gridbugs apart but even during Sam’s first experience with the creatures he can tell Tron’s overwhelmed. 

“We gotta go back for him!” Sam cries, struggling against Barca’s grip. 

“Get to the train and I will go back for him,” Barca says. “Deal?”

Sam hesitates for a nanocycle. “Deal,” he says, and takes off running for the train.

Eos lets him in in an instant, and he flings himself onto a seat in the first car, breathing hard, and waits.

For twelve agonizing microcycles. 

When the door slides open again, Sam leaps to his feet—Barca looks fine, but she’s dragging Tron with his arm over her shoulder. “Stupid self-sacrificing idiot,” she’s muttering under her breath.

“Sounds like Tron,” Sam says, barely disguising the wobble in his voice at the sight of Tron’s condition.

“We’re gone!” Eos yells back, and the train lurches into motion. 

Sam catches Tron, who’s sliding off Barca’s shoulder, and gently lowers him to the floor. Tron’s covered head to toe in small glowing cuts. _Bite marks,_ Sam realizes, from the gridbugs’ tiny pincers. 

One scuttles into the main cabin, having slipped through the door in their escape. Barca derezzes it before Sam’s heart has finished skipping a beat.

Tron groans, regaining consciousness, and sits up against the seat behind his back. “Fuck,” he breathes.

Sam laughs, crouching beside him, and leans his head onto Tron’s shoulder. “I’ll fucking say.”

They sit together for a beat, and then Sam swivels, looking over Tron protectively. “Okay, how can I fix this?”

“It’ll self-heal with time,” Tron says, brushing off Sam’s words but not the hand Sam has on his shoulder. “I’ll have a limp for a millicycle or two, less if I take in a lot of energy.”

“You know what that means,” Sam says. 

Tron looks up into Sam’s eyes. “Don’t make me say it yet.”

Sam grins. “I’ll code you up some water wings.”

Barca raises an eyebrow. “Do I even want to know what water wings are?”

“You’ll see,” Sam says, and gets to work on the long train ride back.

When they pull back into Bismuth station, Sam offers his arm to Tron, who gladly leans onto it. 

They return first to Univa’s office. 

“How was Carbon?” she asks.

“Gridbug infested,” Tron grouses at the same time Sam says, “Beautiful.”

“I’m assuming that’s what happened to you,” she says, gesturing at Tron’s entire body. “Will you three require a place to rest for a millicycle?”

“Yes,” Sam says. “If you’d be so kind.”

“I’ll get the information sent to you,” Univa says. 

“Send it to Barca,” Sam says. “Tron and I have one more errand we need to run right now.”

“Do we now,” Tron says.

“We do,” Sam says, pulling Tron toward the door. “Thank you so much, Univa, we’ll see you soon!”

They end up back at the energy pool, which is miraculously even more deserted than it was when they first visited.

Sam goes to the steps this time and stands ankle deep, holding Tron’s hands as the security program stands paralyzed on the deck. “Hang on,” he says, letting go to pull out his disc. Tapping through the interface, he rezzes into being a pair of inflatable tubes, and hands them to Tron. “You thought I was kidding.”

“What are they?” Tron asks. 

“You put them on the upper part of your arms,” Sam says. “They prevent you from sinking in deep water. Not,” he adds, looking into the waist-deep pool, “that that’s too much of a concern here.”

Tron slides the water-wings onto his arms and takes Sam’s hands again. “Thank you, Sam, for trying to help.”

“I got you,” Sam says. “First step, give it a try.”

Tron makes it onto the first step as Sam retreats to the third, almost up to his hips. Before long, Tron’s standing in waist deep energy, water wings bone dry on his biceps, clinging to Sam’s shoulders like a lifeline, but in the pool regardless. 

“You did it,” Sam whispers. 

Tron stands on his own. “I did it,” he confirms.

No longer holding Tron up, Sam leans back, floating up to his shoulders. Tron makes a panicked lunge to catch him, and Sam yelps as they both topple under the surface. Tron flails momentarily before Sam pushes him upright again. 

“Maybe that’s enough for tonight,” Sam suggests. 

Tron agrees, wading the few short feet back to the steps.

Sam swims around for a moment more before joining him. “Shall we?”

The apartment Univa secured for them to use is on the northern side of the city in a small sector filled with residential buildings. They walk there in silence, enjoying the city around them at a leisurely pace. Sam lets them into the apartment, and with a cursory wave to Barca, leads Tron into a bedroom. 

“I need to sleep because that’s how Users work,” Sam says, sitting down on the side of the bed. “You need to sleep because you got eaten up by gridbugs and you need to recover.”

Tron sighs. “Usually I’d try to fight you on this…” 

“You know I’m right, though,” Sam says. “C’mon. No harm in resting a millicycle.”

Tron sits beside Sam. “All right.”

They settle into bed by some tacit agreement to sleep together again, and Sam’s asleep in microcycles. 

Tron lays awake for some time longer, listening to the soft breathing of the User beside him. Slowly, though, he lets his high-level surrounding scans drop away and embraces sleep.

Sam wakes slowly, with a groan. Sometime in the night he managed to shift over and latch onto Tron, who’s surprisingly still asleep. He’s snoring a little bit, actually.

“You must really have been exhausted, huh,” Sam whispers, sitting up slightly—Tron stiffens, springing awake with an undignified groan of “Hnngph?”

“Good morning,” Sam says as Tron rubs the sleep from his eyes, looking all the more human in the moment.

In an instant, the moment is gone and Tron snaps back into his usual serious self, getting up. “We need to test communication back to The City before we return there,” he says. “While you were resting in Argon I did it from the garage.”

“How about we also try here to Argon?” Sam suggests, still extricating himself from the sheets.

“Good idea,” Tron suggests. “Barca will be relieved to see that everything’s working; it’s her specialty, after all.”

Sam gets up and exits the bedroom. “C’mon! Lots to do!”

Univa welcomes them back into her office with a smile. “Barca pinged me that you wanted to test communication with the other cities before you left?”

“Yes,” Tron says. “I can’t do my job if I don’t know what’s wrong out here and in Argon.”

“Let’s try Argon first,” Barca suggests. “The train line doubles as a high-speed data transfer conduit.”

Univa sends a text ping to Mara: _Testing communications. -Bismuth Subadministrator Univa._

Within a microcycle an answering ping pops up on the desk. _Functional. Good to hear everything’s working. -Argon Garage Subadmin Mara._

Univa laughs. “I’d like to meet this Mara someday. Now what?”

“We ping Tron City next,” Barca says, tapping in the necessary info.

Another ping gets sent, all the way to Tron City, same as the first; it takes a bit longer this time, but the response comes nonetheless. _Communications operational. Tell Tron to get back here soon. -Tron City Security Head Scipio._

“I guess we should be on our way, then,” Sam laughs. 

“It means a lot, having you here and involved with the Grid,” Univa says. “I just wanted to let you know, before you left.”

Sam pauses. “Thank you. I’ll see you again, Univa.”

“You better, User,” she says, as they leave her office. 

Eos is waiting for them again at Bismuth Station, always ready to go, and Sam leads Tron and Barca aboard.

The train chugs west again, leaving the glittering city in the Outlands behind. It takes three-quarters of a millicycle to make it all the way back to Tron City by train, by cycle, by sailer, but at last they arrive at Tron’s headquarters. 

“They’re back!” someone calls. 

“Thank the _Users!”_ Scipio yells. He makes his way over to Tron, and Sam gets a good look at him—he hadn’t known programs could get eyebags, but Scipio has them in spades. A tuft of hair sticks directly up into the air, and as Scipio runs his hands through his hair in exasperation, Sam sees why. 

“Never leave me alone for that long again,” Scipio demands, poking Tron below the tetromino. 

“It wasn’t that long,” Tron tries.

“It sure felt like it,” Scipio says. “I had to cover all of security and _also_ pull double-weight on our shared acting-admin duty because you were gallivanting off into the Outlands with a Flynn.” 

“Well, we’re back,” Sam says. 

“And Sam needs to leave soon anyway,” Tron replies. 

Sam pouts. “Is it already that time?”

“You said you had eleven millicycles. It’s been eleven,” Tron says. 

“You’re right,” Sam says. “But before I go I had a few ideas you guys could work on between now and the next time I’m back.” 

Scipio looks quizzically at Sam until Sam hands him a data chit. Uploading it to a tablet, he scans the short list. “Train line expansion… makes sense… what’s this about Argon?”

“They’re gonna need some help out there,” Sam says. “Anyway, some of that is for way down the road. I marked some of the more urgent stuff.”

Scipio nods, impressed. “These are some good ideas, User,” he says. “Thanks for helping out.”

“Bye, everyone!” Sam says as Tron leads him by the elbow to the door. “I’ll see you as soon as I can!”

He catches in his peripheral vision Scipio wrapping an arm around Barca as they wave goodbye to him, and Sam smiles at the sight. The Grid’s gonna be okay.

The digital version of the arcade stands where it’s always been, but it feels so different now than when he found himself there for the first time. It’s his way home, but also a way to leave a place he’s grown fond of in his four days there—or just over two hours, if you look at it from that direction. _Four days,_ Sam thinks. _And so much done and seen._

“Well, I guess this is goodbye for now,” he says wistfully, out loud. 

“You’ll be back again,” Tron says. “Sooner or later. It’d be nice if it’s within the next cycle.”

“I’ll come back with some builder programs,” Sam says. “Others to help rebuild faster.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Tron says with a smile. “Now go, they’re waiting for you.”

“Did you know,” Sam says, “that two microcyles in here is a second up there? Nothing.” He wraps Tron in a tight hug.

Tron startles, but melts into the hug. 

“Just a second more,” Sam whispers, and holds on for a moment longer before letting go. “Bye.” 

“Bye,” Tron says, standing on the steps as Sam opens the door to the arcade. 

Sam has to tear his eyes away from Tron, but he turns and faces the darkness of the arcade. He goes to the computer console set up inside, steps in the spot he’d programmed into the floor eleven millicycles before, and raises his disc into the air the way he had done so many times as a child. A point of light appears in the sky and grows instantly until it consumes him.

He comes apart.

He comes back together again. 

The light is tinted a warm yellow again, his jeans and jacket replace a gridsuit. The world feels different. He’s back in the User world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a labor of love, and although I cannot wait to get part two written, it will take some time! Until next posting!


	3. Part 2.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The line between Sam's two worlds begins to blur.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” 

Alan’s voice stops Sam in his tracks, and for a moment he’s a shame-faced teenager again, sneaking out with his guitar to hang out with his friends. Only he’s not in his grandparents’ house, or Alan’s, but the hallway of the executive floor at ENCOM, and he’s twenty-seven years old. Even so, ten years later, Alan’s voice still has the same power: “The Grid? I heard you talking about someplace called the Grid with Quorra the other day. Care to explain?”

“It’s seven o’clock, Alan, can’t I leave work for the night?” Sam tries. 

“You’re trying to be sneaky,” Alan points out. “Normally, you swing by and say goodnight, you get sidetracked talking about this or that project, and then you finally leave for real half an hour or so later.”

Sam winces. _Guilty as charged._ The elevator arrives with a _ding_ , and Sam steps into it. “Okay, see ya!”

Alan steps forward, putting a hand in the door, and steps on with Sam. “Not so fast.”

As the elevator whirrs downward, the awkward silence could be cut with a knife. “You don’t want to tell me about this,” Alan says, “and that’s fine. But if it’s something worrying you, know that I want to hel—”

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Sam blurts out. “It’s that I don’t know how. You should have known for years. Probably twenty-eight.”

Alan’s eyebrows fly up. “Since before you were born?”

“Yeah, Dad should have told you, but he didn’t,” Sam says. “It was his project first, I’ve only been developing it for a few weeks now.”

Alan frowns. “Is this what he disappeared over? Sam, you _know_ how I feel about that. If it’s dangerous, you shouldn’t be getting involved.”

Sam sighs. “I know what happened to Dad,” he says. “I’ve already removed that danger.”

Alan freezes. “You _know?”_

“He was still alive,” Sam says, tearing up. “I saw him, on the Grid. I talked to him. I was going to bring him back.”

Alan watches him intently, and puts an arm around his shoulders. “Why didn’t you?”

“He sacrificed himself to protect me,” Sam says, sniffling. “I saw him again for the first time in two decades and I lost him hours later. Or minutes,” he adds, “depending on your point of view.”

The elevator dings, and they step out into the parking garage. “Time isn’t a subjective thing,” Alan says. 

“No,” Sam says, “but on the Grid it’s different. I once spent four days there and I came out to discover two hours had gone by while I was inside.”

“That…” Alan begins to say before stopping. 

“Crazy, I know, but that’s just how it is in there,” Sam says. “It’s in the basement of the arcade.”

“The arcade has a basement?” Alan asks. “What _is_ the Grid?”

“It’s like a whole world inside the computer,” Sam says, “where the computer programs look and talk and act like humans. I’ve been there a few times now.”

“The first time was the night I gave you the keys?” Alan says.

“Yeah,” Sam confirms. “Then again two weeks later, and a couple of times since. I was headed there now, they’re going to be wondering where I am.”

“Because hours here are days there,” Alan fills in. “Let’s go, then.”

“What?”

“I want to see it,” Alan says simply. “I told you about what your father came to tell me the night he disappeared. I want to see what he was so excited about.”

“I’ll meet you there?” Sam asks.

“You’re not going to go home and change first?” Alan says, quizzical grin on his face. “I know how much you love that leather jacket of yours.”

“It doesn’t matter to me in there,” Sam says. “Now let’s get going!”

Sam pulls up to the arcade minutes before Alan and spends them pacing back and forth. _What if Alan hates the Grid? Tron? I should probably warn him first—do I have time before Alan gets here?_

The puttering of a car engine outside snaps Sam out of his spiral. Alan enters the space, lights on but music silenced. 

“Other than that time last month it’s been so long,” Alan says, looking around him. “I didn’t really take a good look.”

“Well,” Sam says, “there’s a part of the arcade I guarantee you haven’t seen before.” He goes to the TRON cabinet and pulls it aside to show Alan the door.

In the darkness below, their steps echo loudly without the melodies of Journey to mask it. Sam wrenches the lower doors open again, and beckons Alan inside.

Alan takes a step in, then two backwards. “You’re using that thing on _yourself?”_

Sam stares at him in confusion, then looks at the laser. “What, this? It’s fine, Dad did it hundreds of times. The MCP did it to him first.”

Alan still hovers fearfully in the doorway. “You’re sure? I saw what it could do when Lora was testing it.”

Sam holds up his hands placatingly. “Yeah. You just run the laser control, it’ll be in the command prompt history. I’m going to go in, to take care of one thing real quickly; just wait like thirty seconds and zap yourself in. Okay?”

“Okay,” Alan says. He watches as Sam takes a seat at the desk and presses a few keys. He swallows the shout that bubbles up as the laser hits Sam in the back, and watches him fade out of existence like a 3D printer in reverse. 

Twenty-nine. 

Twenty-eight.

Sam appears in the arcade and grins. The blue lights on the street envelop him as he races along them. It’s promising, how many times he has to slow down for programs walking by; the life is coming back into the city, slowly. Sam idly wonders how the other cities are faring. 

Tron’s Headquarters looms, not the tallest building in the city, eastward of most but not all, with the old portal clearly visible from its windows. 

“Hey Tron,” Sam calls out as he strides into the command center. “Do you think I should put an indicator where the portal used to be to show when Users are on the Grid?”

“Sam!” Tron says, ignoring the information sprawled out on the desk in front of him. “You’re back!”

“And I have to tell you something,” Sam replies. Tron stops short, worry etched into his face, but Sam continues. “Nothing bad! I’m not leaving or giving up on you guys! I’m bringing a visitor.”

“A visitor?” Tron asks. “Another User?”

“Not just any User,” Sam says with a grin. “ _Your_ User. Alan. He wanted to see the Grid, and what I’m doing here, so I’m bringing him in!” 

Tron startles. “Alan-One’s coming here?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “and I have a sixty-microcycle head start on him, so whatever you need to talk about before he gets here, that’s how long you’ve got to do it.”

“Thank you for the warning, I suppose,” Tron says. “What… did he say, when you told him about the Grid?”

Sam frowns. “He didn’t react too much. He just said he wanted to see it. He was a bit worried about the laser when he saw it, but if he comes through soon it’ll be fine. If not…” _Then he chickened out. And I’ll have to go get him._

“Should we head to the arcade, then?” Tron asks, looking uncharacteristically nervous— _but after all, he is meeting his maker. Literally._

They wait on the steps, Tron pacing back and forth for a few minutes while Sam watches from the railing, when the building lights up with a flash, a pulse flying into the sky before fading out.

“Is that what it looks like when I arrive?” Sam asks. 

“Yes,” Tron replies. “I am capable of missing it; your suggestion of an alert light over the sea was a good idea.”

Sam shrugs to himself. “Huh. Cool.” He stops to think. “Alan’s early.”

The doors open, and Sam watches Alan step out into the open, gawking at the soaring buildings and circuits. He’s rezzed in wearing his business suit, as Sam expected. 

“Hey, Alan!” he waves. 

Alan whirls around, latching onto the familiar voice. “Sam! This place is…”

“Incredible? Jaw-dropping? The most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen?” Sam fills in. “It’s beautiful here, it really is.” He drops into a whisper. “I’m gonna make your first impressions better than mine.” 

Tron hears the whisper, and walks over to Sam’s side. Leaning over to Sam’s ear, he whispers, “Should I get Scipio to send a recognizer?”

“Good idea,” Sam whispers, and Tron grins, eyes flashing with a ping. 

“Who’s this?” Alan asks. 

Tron stills, and Sam stands to introduce them “Alan, this is Tron.”

“Tron?” Alan asks. “The firewall I wrote in ‘82 before firewalls were common?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Tron, come say hi.”

Tron steps into the light of the building, “Hello, Alan-One.”

Alan’s eyes widen. “You look just like I did in the eighties,” Alan says. “Early eighties. The late eighties aged me—I’m rambling. This is incredible, Sam.”

“He’s the best program on the Grid,” Sam says. “And I’ve met all of the Grid’s finest. You did a hell of a job writing him.”

“When Clu attempted to repurpose me,” Tron says, “it took far more effort for him to do so than normal programs.”

Sam looks over at him. “Really? You held out for longer? We need to talk about that, sometime. When you’re ready.”

A rumble sounds overhead, and Sam looks up into the lights of a recognizer outside the arcade, glowing a friendly blue.

“What—” Alan starts, then looks up at it. “Is that…”

“A recognizer?” Sam says. “Yeah, it is!”

“From _Space Paranoids?”_

“Piloted by one of my best security programs,” Tron says proudly. 

The recognizer lands, and the passenger area slides down to let them aboard. It no longer contains a row of restraints, and Sam smiles at the change. _Not this time, baby._

Sam looks above him to the pilot’s cabin, and turns to Tron. “Can we get up there?”

Alan raises an eyebrow. “This is only my second time on a recognizer,” Sam defends himself. “And the first time, I was a prisoner down here.”

“You were a prisoner?” Alan says, worry etched into his features.

Sam shrugs. “Clu’s sentries thought I was a stray program, picked me up, and threw me into the games to fight to the death, where a brainwashed Tron kicked my ass and nearly killed me. It’s fine though, I removed the horrible hack job on Tron and the games haven’t run since Dad… took Clu out of commission.”

“I have a few questions about that,” Alan says faintly, as Tron leads them onto a platform which raises up into the upper cabin. 

“Hey, Sam Flynn,” the program piloting it says. He’s diminutive, standing just above Sam’s shoulders, but looks just as capable of great feats of acrobatics as Tron. 

“This is Hector, Alan,” Sam says. “He’s the vehicle expert on Tron’s team.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alan says. 

The recognizer breaks the fog around the tops of the buildings on the northern side of the city, and the glittering skyline is laid out below them. “Oh my god,” Alan says. 

“I know,” Sam says. “We’re flying over the city named for your program, Tron City. That there across the river is Gallium, and the road you can see heading east is going out to a few more cities in the Outlands—hey, Tron, is that a new bridge? Over the river?”

“Yes, it is,” Tron says proudly. “Gallium and The City are now connected at two points. By the way, the two bridges on the west side of the city are both intact; the one to the mountains, and the one to the cycle grid.”

“Thanks for checking on those, I totally forgot,” Sam says. 

Alan looks at him funny. “What?” Sam asks. 

“Nothing,” Alan says. “You just reminded me of your father, for a moment. After he had just become CEO. It’s good to see you taking charge of things.” 

Sam smiles. “So, Tron, what’ve you got for me this visit?”

Tron clears his throat. “Well, I’ve been considering your proposal from last time—why a new I/O tower?”

“Well, I was thinking I could get the Grid linked up to a network,” Sam says. “Maybe not the internet at large, but something smaller. You’re not really using your full potential, acting as a security program to debug internal processes. You’re a firewall, Tron.”

Tron preens at Sam’s words. “I would appreciate it if I could act with my original function again.”

Alan scoffs. “What did Kevin even do to you, Tron?”

“I’ve done a lot outside my original directive in the past thousand or so cycles,” Tron says. “We’ve all had to. I had hoped Flynn would link us up to a network eventually, but Clu took over the Grid before he could.”

“The history of the Grid is…. storied,” Sam says. “I’ll have to give it to you in more detail later.”

Alan continues staring out the window as they bank wide over the city. “Where would you guys even put a new tower? Sounds like this would have to be a big one.”

“North side,” Sam and Tron casually say in unison. 

“Maybe the northwest?” Tron specifies. “There’s some space out there, and the cycle grid is to the southwest.”

“Good idea,” Sam says, and then to Alan: “I’ve been learning the layout of a few new cities, in here.”

“Are they very different from our cities?” Alan asks. 

“Well,” Sam says, “The main city is a carbon copy of LA, but only near the middle—when it kept expanding it invented new street layouts. Plus, they're all laid out into sectors, which trump some more natural divisions. The other cities aren’t based on anywhere I know.”

“I’m beginning to see why Kevin spent so much time and energy on this place,” Alan says. “He was always working on some side project… maybe they were programs for here.”

“Oh, speaking of,” Sam says. “How have those new builder programs I uploaded a few days ago been settling in?”

“Gallium is looking much better than it was a cycle ago,” Tron replies. “They’ve been hard at work and it shows. The City hadn’t sustained much damage, but it’s gaining some more life as programs are beginning to resume normal activities. I’ve had Argon quarantined; it’s still too volatile there for rebuilding efforts to begin.”

“Not to mention the virus,” Sam mutters.

“There’s a virus on the Grid?” Alan yelps.

“Four hours’ drive away,” Sam says. 

“And staying exactly where they are,” Tron adds. “Paige sends me regular updates on Doomjuice’s activity and Argon as a whole.”

Tron pauses, and thinks for a moment. “I recently remembered the existence of an antivirus program, and I was going to go and find him before my attention was needed elsewhere. Perhaps after you leave I can find him and ask him to help contain Doomjuice further.”

“Excuse me, the virus’s name is _Doomjuice_?” Alan asks, incredulous. 

“That’s been their name since they were compiled,” Tron says. “I don’t understand why Users react this way to them specifically.”

“It sounds funny in User terms,” Sam says. “And have you known them that long?”

“I never knew them well,” Tron says. “They were a lower-level security program at first, but under Clu became a Black Guard. I worked with them a few times as…”

“The enforcer,” Sam fills in. “I get your drift. How’d they become a virus?”

“I have no idea,” Tron confesses. “I still don’t know how Abraxas came about, or how Anon derezzed him. What I wouldn’t give to have him here.”

“But there’s this other program,” Sam says. “He can help us, right?”

“Users help us if he can’t,” Tron says offhandedly, and then looks sideways at Sam. “Um. I know you’ll do your best to. Shall we show Alan-One what the Grid is made of?”

In the limited time Alan and Sam have, they show off much of the half-repaired parts of the Grid around the capital, but barely two millicycles after their arrival they have to depart. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow, Tron!” Sam calls. _A hundred fifty millicycles,_ Tron translates. 

The light in the arcade winks out again, and Tron turns away to the south. The wreck of the End Of Line stopped smoking cycles ago, but as far as Tron can tell has been left largely untouched since then. The program he’s looking for probably won’t be there anymore.

_Rinzler sat in a corner, watching, waiting, as the End of Line patrons danced and laughed and drank. The DJ laughed too, tossing his long hair back as he spun his disc on the turntables and the music through the circuits of everyone there—everyone, that is, but Rinzler. Another program also sat at a table in another corner, eyes locked on the DJ’s booth from underneath the fuschia-crossed mask he wore. Rinzler knew he was another Occupation agent, and Rinzler knew that he would be sent on another mission soon, and Rinzler wanted to know more about why he was there._

_A green-circuited program sidled up to the mysterious Occupation informant in pink, and alarm bells went off in Rinzler’s head. He wasn’t supposed to know about her. He was supposed to ignore her. Rinzler left in a hurry, slipping out without anyone noticing but the looming bouncer in peach._

Tron returns to HQ. Even though he has no idea where the antivirus is, barely knowing more than the program in pink’s name, he remembers his old sparring partner and friend, the occupation soldier who’d been reassigned to a post in the depths of the Outlands. _Away from me,_ Tron knows. She’d been too close to Rinzler and gotten burned by Clu.

Tron makes it all the way out to Carbon by regular means before launching himself into the east on one of the few lightjets that survived through Reintegration.

The caves in the cliffs overlooking the Sea of Simulation are empty. The outpost she’d once lived in is deserted, and Tron sighs. _Of course she wouldn’t stay, after all, she didn’t have to._ The wind whips at him, acrid off the waves, and Tron is almost nauseated. He leaves as soon as possible.

He’s sitting at a bar in Bismuth, sipping a glass of energy and thinking about where to try next, when a shadow falls across the table, cut in lines of white light. “Well, well, well, look what the gridbug dragged in,” a familiar voice says. “Long time, no see.”

Tron looks up into the mask of the program he’s looking for. “Atlas,” he says in greeting.

“Tron,” she says in reply. “I’ll admit it’s strange to see you in blue.”

“I could say the same about your white,” Tron says. 

“And stranger still to hear your voice,” she says before breaking into a short coughing fit.

“It’s fortunate you were here this millicycle,” Tron says. “I was just looking for you.”

“For me?” Atlas asks. “I’m honored.”

“I’m looking for another program, too; one you know,” he says. “Argon’s got a proble—”

“Argon’s got a whole lot of problems,” Atlas interrupts. “Why put it on quarantine now?”

Tron looks around. “We should really have this conversation somewhere more private. How about on the way to find your friend?” Tron pings her an image of her at the End of Line from cycles before. 

“You’re looking for him?” Atlas asks. 

“Yes I am,” Tron says. “And I can’t tell you why with this many programs around. Shall we move to the train?”

“And why would I want to go back to Tron City right now?” Atlas asks, tongue in cheek. “For all you know I was headed east.”

“I need you to show me the way,” Tron says, gesturing for Atlas to follow as he stands to leave. “Are you coming, or do I have to try something else?”

Atlas joins him. “I guess if it’s that important.”

On the train, after a quick wave hello to Eos, Tron commandeers the rear car, shooing out programs and ignoring the whispers that follow in his wake. “So.”

“So,” Atlas fires back, sitting on a bench and letting her helmet flip back, revealing a cloud of white hair. “You need to find someone, and the ‘why’ is related to the situation in Argon.”

Tron nods. “I had the city put under quarantine because there’s a virus loose in central Argon.”

Atlas’s eyes widen. “A virus? Users, no wonder you need to find an antivirus program. How—”

“We don’t know,” Tron breaks in, slumping into a seat of his own. “I have no idea how they turned from a Black Guard into _this_ , but somehow it’s happened. I have noticed that programs who forcibly broke rectification while Clu was still in power tended to suffer… adverse effects, but…”

“And you think that caused him to become a virus?” Atlas asks. 

“It can’t have been that alone,” Tron mutters. “I had… a former apprentice, who suffered like that. He did some terrible things… but never went viral.”

“So we’re probably not going to have more viruses in the future,” Atlas concludes. “Well, that’s a little good news at least. But you’ll need help. You can _probably_ find your program at the auxiliary archives about thirty-six microcycles northwest of Tron City. He tends to stay there when he’s not traveling.”

 _I can make it in thirty,_ Tron thinks. “That might be good enough to get me there on my own, if you don’t want to go all the way to the archive—”

“No, no,” Atlas says before being wracked by another coughing fit. Tron stares in concern as a few bright green voxels end up in her fist. 

“Are you oka—”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen a few old friends in the city anyway,” Atlas continues, acting like nothing’s happened.

Tron stares at her. “What was that?”

“It’s not viral,” Atlas assures him. “It’s a problem I got from being exposed to the Sea for too long.”

Tron frowns. “I was floating in it for almost a half cycle,” he says. “Do I need to worry?”

“It took fifty cycles for me to notice the problems,” Atlas says, “and a hundred more to acknowledge them.”

They sit in silence for sometime more, the train rocketing straight through Argon with a blur of viridian replacing their stop at the station. Tron thinks he can see a flash of yellow.

“Half a millicycle longer, now,” Atlas says. “I don’t particularly want to hang around and watch you mope, so I’m going to rejoin the rest of the train and meet you in Gallium. I’ll see you then.” She rezzes her helmet again and walks out into the rest of the train, to the curious gawks of other programs.

“I don’t mope,” Tron mutters, but stays in the back of the train, staring pensively out at the track as the ground flies away from the train behind them.

When they pull into Gallium Tron sighs in relief. 

Atlas joins him again on the solar sailer transport into the larger city; looking down over the waters below, Tron observes the construction of a new bridge into Gallium as Atlas comes up behind him. “Not too long a drive from the tower, no?” she calls. 

“I wouldn’t know,” Tron says enigmatically. “You’re leading the way when we get there.”

Lead Atlas does, and Tron follows behind on his lightcycle as they rocket out into the western Outlands from the tower at the center of Tron City. 

The closest bridge deposits them due west of the city though their destination is farther north; the ground directly next to the river chasm is still flat enough for their lightcycles to drive with minimal problems. Tron drives straight along the hexagonal river’s northwestern edge, watching the peaks of the distant mountains crawl slowly across the horizon while closer foothills fly by in blurs of lighter grey casting soft shadows against each other. Atlas stops, periodically, to consider a rock feature or two; always uneventful, never quite the right one—until, when they’re nearing the corner where the river turns and they’d have to go due east again, Atlas chooses another hill to inspect, and finds what she’s looking for.

“This is it,” she declares. “It’s been a few hundred cycles since my last visit.”

They drive directly into the hills at a much more sedate pace than before—the ground’s getting rockier, and Atlas is searching for more landmarks.

The small doorway built into the side of a steeper rock almost escapes Atlas’s eye, but Tron spots it in an instant. Nevertheless, he lets Atlas lead him to it—she’s in charge, and his heightened security perception gives him an advantage. 

“Here’s the door,” Atlas says, derezzing her cycle and climbing the small slope up to the doorway.

“And he’s here?”

“He lives here when he’s in the city,” Atlas shrugs. “He’s friends with the head archivist.”

Tron frowns. All this way and no guarantee, but it’s the best lead he’s got. They descend into the dark of the archive’s antechamber before being lowered on a platform down into the ground.

The stacks extend radially outward from the platform as far as Tron can see—glowing towers of data tablets on shelves, lighting the chambers by themselves. The whir of the platform bounces around the room, echoing ominously. Few other noises disturb the space, and Tron’s footsteps into the room magnify themselves what feels like tenfold. 

There’s another set of footsteps echoing around the archive, somewhere distant and to the right, getting closer. Someone’s approaching them, slow and deliberate. Tron moves to find them, but thinks twice before getting himself lost in the stacks. 

Atlas grins, and pings Tron: _Here’s your program._

The clacks of footsteps grow louder, and from that direction the glow begins to appear almost lavender before a program steps into the clearing, long dark coat accented with pink circuits. The mask, with its memorable cross pattern, stares back at Tron. 

“Atlas pinged that you were looking for me,” he says.

“It’s nice to meet you at last, Norn,” Tron says in return. “It should have happened long ago.”

“Antivirus and Security didn’t work together much, did they?” Norn says. 

“Perhaps not,” Tron concedes. “But we need to work together now; what’s keeping you down here?”

Norn scoffs. “If you want to hear the whole sordid story, you’ll have to hack it out of me. But I apparently wasn’t _that_ good an antivirus, if Abraxas got around me like that. If Flynn saw fit to remove me from the position. Whatever you need me for now, there’s got to be someone else better for the job.”

“For one, there’s no one else to do the job,” Tron says. “We’ve lost a lot of good programs in the last thousand-fifty-three cycles. But I’m not asking you to single-handedly destroy a virus.”

Norn shifts from one foot to the other. “Then what _are_ you asking me to do?”

Tron sighs. “There’s a virus running part of Argon City. Actively. They are already fully infected, but for whatever reason they aren’t as bent on destruction as Abraxas was. They seem to be playing some kind of long game. I want you to keep an eye on them, and also watch for any fresh infections. They’re watching over a number of scared programs who are as of yet uninfected, and I’d like it to stay that way.”

Norn recoils in shock. “That’s a hell of a situation, Tron. How did a virus even get onto the Grid? During the signal pulse five cycles ago? I know you were still… indisposed, so you wouldn’t have stopped it.”

“Evolved from the inside,” Tron says, with over a thousand cycles of exhaustion behind the words. “Users know the specifics. This time, evolved just as naturally as Clu claimed last time around. Former Black Guard named Doomjuice.”

Norn shrugs. “Doomjuice. I remember them. Never did like them. They got under my render.”

“Me too,” Atlas chimes in. “They were always just a little too fascinated with the job.”

Tron frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Most of them would do their job well,” Norn explains. “Doomjuice would go over the top, and watch all the destruction with the closest eye I’d ever seen.”

“Even more so than you,” Atlas says. “You watch everything. They’d focus on something almost to the exclusion of everything else.”

Tron thinks over their words. “Hm. So you’ll help?”

Norn nods. “I guess I have to. I’ll be reporting to you?”

“No, to the programs Beck and Paige in Argon. They need to know everything much faster than I do,” Tron says. “They’re in charge of passing anything relevant on to me. You’ll be able to find them in the garage not far from the docks.”

“I guess I should head there,” Norn says reluctantly. 

“No rush,” Tron says. “A millicycle more of unsupervised virus can’t hurt too much.”

Atlas snorts. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re sarcastic or not. You were a lot less chatty as Rinzler.” 

Tron smiles. “I’ll leave you two to catch up. Thank you for your help, both of you, and it was nice to meet you, Norn.”

He walks back to the elevator platform and leaves. As he cycles back towards the city, he stares out over the large swath of empty space northwest of the city. _That really is the perfect spot for a tower._

Speaking of which, Tron needs to get back to Shaddox and his new team and look at the plans they’ve come up with for the new tower, some plans for other cities, and the rebuild of the End Of Line some other programs tried to start by themselves. 

To play admin for a few cycles longer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Atlas and Norn are original characters created by tumblr users spiralsnowy and floatingbrainspace, respectively! Thanks to them for allowing their lovely programs to join the story.


	4. Part 2.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam visits friends and makes new ones.

It’s another whole cycle of constant work for Tron before the sky flashes with an incoming User’s beam, and to Tron’s surprise the light of the old portal appears in the east. He pauses, looking up from a list of information forwarded to him by Scipio, and takes a microcycle to look over the skyline at the light. Then, he puts down the data and runs for the elevator.

Sam swaggers out of the arcade, grin brighter than his white circuits, and Tron’s own circuits thrill as the User waves, cries “Hey, Tron!” and wraps him in a quick embrace. “How was your cycle?”

Tron’s eyebrows go up. “You knew it was a cycle?”

“It’s important to know!” Sam protests.

Tron smiles at him. “I appreciate it; thank you, Sam.”

“You never answered my question,” Sam says, poking Tron in the side. “What’ve you been up to?”

“You first,” Tron says. “It’s been less time for you.”

“Standard week of adjusting to mass company changeover,” Sam says. “It’s been over a month now and I’m finally starting to feel comfortable. Looked at a few major reports and made some big business decisions without Junior or Hardington looking over my shoulder. The man’s real sore over not being the CEO anymore. Now tell me about a cycle in the life of Tron.”

“A good portion of my time has been spent reading,” Tron says with a deep sigh. “Overseeing the I/O tower’s construction, talking to Paige, talking to Norn, talking to Scipio… he’s been running most of security while I try to do an admin’s job. But Scipio did just send me something very interesting.”

“Like what?”

Tron pauses. “An isolated group of programs that Clu rectified. They never reverted in the absence of orders from their leader. Scipio knows I’m the only program on the Grid that can help them recover without going insane, so I was just glad for the excuse to go and do things. The last time I got to do that was the time Zuse resurfaced.”

“Zuse?” Sam yelps. 

“I know,” Tron says calmly. “Users know how he survived; Clu had the Black Guards blow up the club after they finished talking to him. I had some words for that program.”

“Do you know how he survived?” Sam asks. “Any idea at _all?”_

“None,” Tron mutters. “And barely anyone’s seen him in half a cycle.”

Sam leans against the railing. “What the _fuck,”_ he whispers. 

“I could say much the same,” Tron assures him. “But in his absence, I believe we’re due at the arena.”

Sam pushes himself up, frowning. “Which one?”

“The arena, not the lightcycle grid,” Tron says.

Sam frowns. “Great. Are those still-rectified programs hanging out there or something?”

“They were assigned to guard the Games conscripts and run the place,” Tron says. “I don’t expect them to be thrilled to see us.”

“No backup?” Sam asks, pulling a lightcycle from his thigh. 

Tron follows suit. “Hector will be watching, and if things get bad he’ll be ready to leap in. Now let’s go.” 

It’s a longer journey to the arena than the first time Sam made it; for one, he’s on the ground rather than flying overhead in a recognizer, and the streets are nowhere near as empty as before. Also, he’s driving in confidently as compared to being flown in scared shitless. It all sort of blurred together the first time.

Plus, he knows what he’s up against. And the Rinzler in the middle is right by his side.

They pull up to the stadium and Sam gawks at the series of wide doors—he didn’t exactly get to go through the fans’ entrance last time around. The spotlights are out, the circuitry on the sides of the building dimmed, and the platform feels far too eerily quiet without the roar of a distant crowd and the rush of engines overhead.

Sam strolls up to the door. It doesn’t move. 

“Locked after Reintegration,” Tron calls. He jogs to an access panel by the first door and taps his disc against it, and it slides open with a whoosh. 

“Big enough to drive a light tank through,” Tron remarks, and walks in, leaving behind him a gobsmacked User. “Better close it behind ourselves.”

“There are _tanks?”_

“I wonder where the guards are,” Tron murmurs.

“Excuse me, _tanks?_ Geez. I learn something new every time I visit, don’t I.” Sam throws his hands up in the air and follows Tron inside. 

Tron fiddles with the panel on the inside of the wall and the door slides shut again, plunging them into darkness. 

“I don’t like this,” Sam whispers. “Nothing is dark like this on the Grid.”

“When a building is inactive, it can be,” Tron whispers. 

They walk through the darkened corridors, only seeing by the light of their own circuits; it’s oddly similar to any football stadium back in the User world, with channels leading out to the stands and places for the fans to get energy interspersed. No bathrooms, though. 

“Do programs not pee?” Sam mutters to himself.

An orange glow appears in the bend of the hallway, and Tron stops in his tracks, throwing one hand out to his side to stop Sam and the other to his disc.

The sounds of footsteps continue anyway, double echoes fading to one.

Tron tugs on Sam’s arm. “We need to get into the arena, we’ve got no backup in the halls.”

“How many are there?” Sam asks, stumbling after Tron into the dim light of the stands.

“I have no idea,” Tron says, distracted. 

The arena looked big when he was in the middle of it, but the vast scale only clicks for Sam when he’s standing in the rows of seats. There’s a little ambient light from the sky above, and the visibility drops off quickly in the dark—except for tiny dots of orange glow all around the arena, mostly on the entry level, but with a few above or below. 

“We should have taken the conscripts’ entrance,” Tron mutters to himself, then steels himself for what Sam can see in his eyes is going to be a death-defying stunt. “Follow me closely and _hold on,”_ he orders, and takes off running down the stairs. Sam dutifully follows.

Tron flings himself off the balcony and Sam is right there with him—heart racing, head spinning as the ground drops away beneath him. Tron grabs his hand and pulls him in, first an arm curling around Sam and then the glow and familiar sounds of a lightjet rezzing around them. 

Cued perhaps by the movement, the scoreboard lights up and the old platform Rinzler stalked cycles before rises into the air. The engines echo endlessly in the silent arena, and Sam and Tron make their stand, back to back in the middle of an empty arena as the orange points of light all charge into the bleachers and down, upwards of a dozen.

“Try for nonlethal force,” Tron mutters. “Strike the circuits.” Staring out at the stands, he grimaces. “This is going to be more difficult than I expected.”

The flock of angry programs coalesces below them, swarming on the ground like so many orange bees. One manages to jump higher, launched by their fellows, and gets a hand on the edge of the platform. 

With a yell, they charge at Sam and Tron, and Tron sends them sprawling in microcycles. Picking themself up off the floor, they stagger in for another pass—

With a quick lunge to the side, Sam spins and lands a foot on the program’s disc dock. They drop, like a puppet with their strings cut, and their circuits dim. 

Two more programs hoist themselves into the arena. “Good a way as any to space them out,” Sam shrugs, and charges with Tron.

One unconscious program goes flying and Tron moves in to take out the one Sam’s still tussling with. They join their compatriots on the floor momentarily. 

A conscript’s platform floats up to their level; the remaining twelve programs have gotten back into the arena’s systems. “So much for delaying them,” Tron says.

The sound of a dozen discs activating simultaneously makes Sam flinch, but Tron merely sinks, almost imperceptibly, into a lower crouch, ready to spring.

Sam drops to his knees, and codes a command prompt as Tron runs at the programs. He focuses on the characters appearing before him, attempting to drown out the terrifying sounds of discs on discs, hoping he won’t hear the shattering of voxels spilled. “I could use some help,” Tron calls over his shoulder. Suddenly from above, the roar of an engine—

Looking up, another lightjet drops through the tiny hole far above through which the cloudy sky can be seen. It weaves expertly through the rotating bars of the scoreboard, and no sooner does its nose crash through the roof of Rinzler’s old platform than it derezzes, a program in blue circuits plummeting with a baton in hand. He lands, one foot on either side of an orange-lit program, and pins them to the ground. 

“What’s up, Tron?” Hector says, and sweeps the feet out from another rectified program. 

Sam looks back down at the code he’s written, finishes it, and executes it.

Every program in orange passes out, slumping to the floor in unison.

Tron and Hector both look up and over at Sam; Tron’s foot is still frozen in midair, Hector still on top of a program, and both are completely and utterly gobsmacked. “Did I freeze you guys on accident, too, or are you just in awe of my awesome User powers?” Sam asks. 

Tron puts his foot back down. “Thank you, Sam.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Hector says, standing back up. 

They work to prop all fifteen programs up into vaguely dignified sitting positions, and then look over the assorted bunch. “So which are we handling first?” Hector asks.

“And how are we ‘handling’ them in the first place?” Sam chimes in.

A program stirs—one of the first ones, who was knocked out with force and not code. Sam freezes, and Hector raises a fist as if to strike, but Tron holds him back. The program staggers to their feet and takes a few shaky steps towards them before tripping and falling right into Sam.

“Easy there, program,” Sam says gently. Tron plucks the disc from the program’s back and opens the code, to the amazement of every fully-conscious person there. “You can do that?” Sam squawks, as Hector says, “You have edit privileges?”

“I do not, strictly speaking,” Tron directs at Hector, “But I’ve taken for myself the ability to undo what Clu did to programs.”

Pulling out a line of code, many seemingly unrelated ones turn orange and detach with it. Tron throws the code away and closes the interface. “The suppression of original functions has been removed, and I hope this program will have an easy time coming out of it.”

Tron re-docks the program’s disc, and Sam gently lets the program in his arms sit on the ground as they jerk with the force of the sync. 

The orange sentry’s circuits flicker out and disappear, and a new set of circuits flares to life in a vibrant blue. The program sits up abruptly, scrabbling at the helmet over their face. The helmet gets torn off—and the panicked program underneath is revealed at last, a young man who looks not too different from Sam. He’s breathing heavily, looking around at the programs sitting on the ground and standing over him. “You did this?” he asks. “You saved me?”

Tron nods, and walks over to the other dimly-lit programs in orange, beginning to take discs and de-rectify sleeping programs. “I’m sorry you had to go through it awake. I know how unpleasant it is.”

“Rinzler? No—Tron,” the program says. “Thank you, I can’t thank you enough.”

Sam squats down by the shaken program and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey. What’s your name?”

The program looks grateful to have something to focus on. “Tate.”

“Tate, nice name,” Sam says. “What’s your directive, Tate? And I don’t count whatever Clu had you doing.”

“I was a bartender at the End Of Line,” Tate says, drifting into his thoughts again. “With my partner… Users, my _partner!_ Is he alright? Do you even know? Oh, he must have been so worried when I got rectified… is there any way to know…?”

Sam frowns. “Well, I’m pretty new around here, so I don’t know too many programs. I’ve only been to the End Of Line once, and I barely even looked at the bartender. Maybe we can find out, later.”

“We wanted to check up on Doomjuice?” Tron reminds Sam. 

“I’ve got hours,” Sam says. “Somewhere in the range of two dozen millicycles. We’ve got more than enough time.”

Tron rolls his eyes and gets back to work. 

“So you used to bartend at the End Of Line, but Clu rectified you to work in the arena,” Sam says. “Waste of perfectly good talents, if you ask—”

“Not exactly,” Tate juts in. “He wanted me to do the same kind of work for him, exclusively, when he came to the games. When Clu wasn’t there, I guarded conscripts with the other sentries. He had to rectify me, because if I was going to be his personal bartender he wanted absolute loyalty.”

“Smart,” Hector comments. “Still not justified, but smart.”

Tate blinks—surprised and confused, and then shrugs. “Fair enough. If I hadn’t been rectified I might have tried to poison him.” He pauses. “Is that me being angry after the fact or would I actually have done it? I don’t know. I certainly would now.”

At the casual vitriol he hears, Sam grins a nervous grin, not quite reaching his eyes. “I like the passion, buddy. Aren’t we all pissed. Even if Clu were still around, you’d have to get in line.” 

“So he is gone, then?” Tate says. “For good? I figured, given how dark this place has been in the past few cycles. Shame.”

“Again, you’d have to get in line,” Hector says. “I was a Black Guard. I’d sure love to smash him to voxels.”

“He made mistakes,” Sam says, “not denying that, but Dad kinda trapped him between a rock and a hard place.”

“I’d like to make the _hard place_ my plane,” Hector says. “Or maybe a recognizer.”

“Nice,” Tate says with a snort. 

Hector grins. “Yeah, that’s better! Maybe come down on top of him with a leg—”

“Can we talk about something else?” Sam asks. “Maybe we can head to the End Of Line later, see who’s there.”

Tate brightens up instantly. “I’d love to!”

Tron clears his throat, and gestured to the fourteen unconscious programs in sentry’s armor glowing faint shades of blue and green and indigo. “Well, I’ll have to help these programs transition back into the Grid, but if you two wanted to meet me there soon…?” 

Sam frowns. “I guess. I’ll see you soon?”

Tron nods. “Shouldn’t be more than half a millicycle, so take your time. I’d better get going.”

Hector speaks up: “I brought a recognizer and parked it outside, let me go get that to help—”

Tron nods. “I’ll wake them up and bring them out the way our User here came in a few cycles ago,” he says, pointing a thumb at Sam. Hector salutes, and leaps back out into the arena; he rezzes his jet again and flies outside through the open part of the roof.

“You can access the arena systems, right?” Tate asks. “You don’t need my help?”

“Do you even have those permissions anymore?” Tron asks. “I think they were removed with the rectification.”

Tate flexes his fingers; Sam guesses he’s testing his code. “I suppose I don’t. Good luck then, Tron, and thank you again!” 

Sam and Tate turn to leave, before noticing that they’re all still hovering on a platform a hundred feet in the air. “I got it,” Tron says, and keys into the system; the platform begins lowering. Sam and Tate hop off as it reaches ground level, and with a wave goodbye Tron descends into the underbelly of the arena without them.

Tate shrugs. “Well, back out the front doors, I guess. Sorry I scared you earlier, in the hall.”

“That was you?” Sam asks. “Damn, dude. Well, it’s all good now. We’re gonna go to the End Of Line together and we’re gonna have a better time than I did the last time I was there.”

Tate looks at Sam, concerned. “What happened?”

Sam shrugs exaggeratedly. “Oh, you know, the Black Guard showed up and tried to kill me, my dad’s disc got stolen, and my friend Quorra lost an arm, and we fled in a broken elevator and fell four hundred stories. No big deal.”

“Huh,” Tate says. “I saw some exciting moments in my cycles bartending there, but never the Black Guard showing up to arrest someone. I’m sure it happened while I was away a time or two, though.”

“No doubt,” Sam says, hoping it is an obvious truth and he’s not saying something obviously stupid.

“I bet I can ask Meyer when we get there,” Tate says with joy lining each word, a skip falling into his step as he walks outside. 

Sam winces. “How long were you rectified, again?”

Tate pauses, turning to face Sam, trepidacious. “Around eight-hundred-fifty cycles, why?”

Sam wrings his hands. “That’s a long time, buddy. We don’t know what might have happened to him in the meantime. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up too high and get crushed.”

Tate seems to physically shake off the idea. “Well, we’ll see when we get there, won’t we?”

Sam frowns, but lets Tate hope. “Okay, then. You got a lightcycle on you?”

“Uh. No,” Tate says. “Never was allowed one with Clu.”

Sam reflexively pats his thighs, then remembers he can just look. There’s one baton there. “Uh-oh.”

Tate shrugs. “No problem, we—um, the arena batons, we kept them stashed everywhere around here, just in case. Derezzed all the time in the, uh, _other_ arena, of course, but we had to have them around here, too.”

As Tate retrieves one from a cleverly hidden wall panel on the outside of the arena, Sam attempts not to think about the ‘just in case’ situations Clu would have kept cycles all over the arena for. “Shall we go?” Tate says, brandishing a baton that fades from orange to blue in his grip. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Sam says, sending one last glance back at the arena he had been dragged to the first time. 

The drive into the city is easy, and Sam waves at the programs who stop and stare, somehow knowing, _sensing,_ the gravity of the User and his mysterious companion. The streets are starting to fill up with busy programs again, though Tate doesn’t seem to agree. “Looking a bit sparse, still,” he comments. 

“Better than before,” Sam says. “Though I’m sure it was a lot busier before Clu started derezzing programs left and right.”

“We had over 16 million programs in this city alone, before the Occupation,” Tate says. “How many now?”

“Much less,” Sam says, a wave of grief washing over him. Knowing Clu did terrible things was one thing, but the sheer number of dead programs is devastating. Eight million. “About half.”

“Users,” Tate swears, then catches himself. “Oh. Um—” 

“No big deal,” Sam says. “Almost there!”

The building has two elevators now, and Sam wants to congratulate whoever had that idea. 

“Huh. That’s new. Wonder how long it’s been there,” Tate says, stepping into the one at their floor. The other is somewhere on the building above. 

“Last cycle or two, no doubt,” Sam responds, and punches the button at the top. 

Tate’s breath catches in his throat as they ascend, and he places a hand against the glass to stare out at the skyline dropping away below them. “It’s been so long…” 

The elevator stops at the top. “You need a moment?” Sam asks. It really is quite the view.

“Yeah, just gimme a—” Tate waves his other hand loosely. 

“You got it, man.” Sam walks through into the main club, and takes a look around. It’s more crowded than it was the last time he visited, and has a few notable differences. Despite Tron’s claim, Zuse is nowhere to be found. The audio booth is larger, and contains not two masked programs but one man with long hair. _Didn’t know there were any programs with long hair worn loose like that,_ he thinks, then listens intently to the music the DJs are playing. _Sounds kinda like Blue Monday._ He takes one further step in, and every face in the room slowly turns to him, the music fading out until it’s barely audible. A face emerges from the wall, a short program—her eyes widen at Sam’s appearance. “Holy fuck,” she murmurs, the only thing audible in the room besides the faint music, and her helmet flits up around her head.

“Hey, everyone,” Sam says. 

Tate wanders up behind him. “What’s going on?” he says, and the room erupts.

“Tate’s back!” A program yells from the bar. 

“With a _User,_ ” someone else adds.

Tate looks directly at the bartender. “Is that Meyer?” Sam asks in Tate’s ear as everyone yells.

“N-no,” Tate whispers, face falling. Tears well at the corners of his eyes, and Sam attempts to console him while also being very curious about whether or not they’ll glow like energy.

The peach-circuited program hanging out by the entrance like a bouncer pounces on Tate, wrapping him up in a bone-crushing hug (if programs even have bones. Do they have bones?) “It’s so good to see you alive and rezzed!”

“Hey, Floric,” Tate says, patting the program on his bicep. “Good to see you too.” 

The DJ, who flung himself down some stairs and got the skittish program to cover him, makes his way across the floor, pushing and shoving to get to Sam and Tate. “Tate!”

Floric lets Tate back onto the floor, only to get embraced again by the DJ. “Hi, Asder,” Tate says.

“We all thought you’d been derezzed,” Asder says. “Oh, man, Meyer’s gonna be _so_ happy when he gets in later.”

Tate jolts. “Wh-what? He’s alive?”

Floric laughs, loud and booming. “Just because he’s not here right now you thought he'd been derezzed? Guy-man and Thomas aren’t here, doesn’t mean they’re gone.”

“Close call with them, though,” Asder chimes in, “they were there when the Users showed up and got in a fight with the Black Guard.”

“How would you know, Asder, you were three cities away!” Floric says, clapping Asder on the shoulder.

“Hey, Clu couldn’t find me out in Bismuth,” Asder laughs. “Univa’s a strange program, but she kept me safe.”

“Can we back up a bit?” Sam and Tate both blurt out at the same time. 

Floric and Asder both grin. “Come, on, you two,” Asder says, gracefully spreading his arms as he backs into the club. “Ronnie’s covering me in the booth—she’s a bit shy—so perhaps Floric and I, and the others, can tell you some stories. The User, _here!_ And our old friend, so long gone.”

Floric leans in to whisper in Sam’s ear. “Don’t let Asder fool you, he’s not normally this smooth.”

As if on cue, Asder turns to begin walking forward and stumbles, twisting an ankle as he half-falls into the lowered area lined with couches. “Glitch-damn-it!” he mutters. 

Sam and Tate follow the other programs to the bar. Programs swarm to get a good look at the User; he’s given more offers of a drink than he could possibly consume in one sitting. He accepts one from the bartender and sits in a circle of chairs with a number of excitable programs, looking out over the cityscape below. Visible in the distance is what Sam now knows to be his father’s old hideout, and he looks out over it wistfully. “You’d think the club would look east,” Sam comments offhandedly.

“You would think that,” Floric says with a grin, “Except for the upper observation deck. Not as many programs know about that.”

“I’d love to head up there right now, but…” Asder gestures to the ankle he’s twisted; it’s glowing the same bright aqua as his main circuitry, gridlines showing the injury. “Stairs.”

“Asder likes looking out towards Argon, he misses his _boyfrien_ —”

“Boyfriend?” Tate asks. “Since when? _Who?_ ”

“Do you want me to help with that?” Sam asks, gesturing to Asder’s ankle. 

Asder wrinkles his nose. “Uh, what?” he says. 

Sam wiggles his fingers at Asder’s leg. “User powers, man. I can fix that in just a second.”

Asder sticks his leg up in the air. “Much appreciated,” he says.

Sam sighs. “I mean—I still need to see your disc.”

A flash goes off. Sam looks over and Floric is doubled over laughing, clutching what looks like a camera in one hand. “Had to get a shot of that,” he wheezes.

Asder offers Sam his disc, and gestures for Floric to come closer. “C’mon, you gotta show me.”

Sam sneaks a peek. It is a good photo, Asder grinning with one leg in the air like a dancer and Sam staring back at him with a slightly confused smile on his face. He fixes the error—two lines only, easy compared to some other code injuries he’s seen— and hands off the disc. “Why don’t you show me the observation deck?” 

Asder stands, tests his ankle, and beams. He bounces towards the shadowed area to the left of the club’s entrance. “C’mon!”

Sam follows, and so does Tate. “Hang on, you’re not getting out of answering the question that easily,” Tate calls after him, following them. 

A gesture from Asder on the wall panel, and a set of spiral stairs unfold from the ceiling, reminding Sam of Clu’s ship on the lightcycle grid. Tate is clearly thinking the same thing, if the grimace on his face can tell Sam anything. But the moment is broken when instead of the sysadmin’s stomp down the stairs, Asder gleefully prances upward, with another invitation to follow thrown down over his shoulder through his hair. 

Sam climbs the glowing blue stairs; above the bustle of the End Of Line’s eastern side is a smaller room with glass walls, looking out over the city and Outlands. There’s no one else up there but the two programs and Sam. He steps up to the glass

“Some view, huh?” Asder says, nose close enough to the window to fog it with his breath—but he’s a program, and the glass remains clearer than any Sam’s seen back in the User world. “This used to be you and Meyer, remember? Always looking out towards Argon together? But now it’s me.”

“Who’ve you got out there?” Tate asks beside Asder. 

“Remember Norn?” Asder asks. “The program who was always here. He’s an antivirus—”

Sam startles. 

“—and Tron sent him out to Argon for something important. Norn only told me so I wouldn’t worry, I don’t think I’m allowed to tell anyone else.”

“I can’t believe you two finally got together,” Tate laughs. 

Asder smiles. “Yeah, me neither. It’s pretty new, too. It’s a shame he had to go so soon, but from what he told me? It was pretty important. Sooner or later it’ll all be taken care of and he’ll be able to come back.”

Sam clears his throat. “Um, if it helps, that’s problem number one me and Tron are focusing on. We’re making a visit to Argon later.”

Asder turns to face Sam. “Thank you. Try and hurry, yeah? And can you tell Norn I said hi?”

“Will do,” Sam says. “I’m waiting for Tron to get here and meet me before we head out.”

Asder shakes his head. “By ‘try and hurry’ I just meant get that _Doomjuice_ program under control soon, will you?”

Tate frowns. “Now, I may _just_ have come back from the ranks of Clu’s rectified, but something’s wrong in Argon?”

“It’s been partitioned off for a few cycles now. No one in or out but Tron and Norn and our User, here,” Asder says, gesturing to Sam. “Not many programs know what’s going on in there.”

“Are the programs who live there okay?” Tate asks.

“Depends on what part of the city you’re in, I suppose,” Sam offers.

Tate frowns, but is startled out of his reverie when the stairs to the observation deck retract and Floric sticks his head up through the floor. “Hey Tate! Get down here, it’s about two or three microcycles ‘till Meyer gets here!”

Floric has to duck his head out of the way as Tate scrambles for the stairs. Sam and Asder follow behind, and Sam gets his feet back on the ground just in time to turn the corner and see elevator doors slide open to reveal a program in green.

“MEYER!” Tate yells, taking off at a run.

Meyer’s face changes in an instant, cycling through some sort of reversal of the five stages of grief before turning to joy, flinging his arms out right as Tate throws himself into them, and they topple backwards into the elevator. 

Sam grins, watching them untangle on the floor and sit up, grinning like maniacs. Meyer leans in and whispers something, and it begins to feel like too much of a moment. 

Once Tate and Meyer are reunited, the atmosphere begins to feel a lot more like a party, especially after Meyer starts his shift as bartender and Tate works alongside him. Asder wanders back up to the DJs booth, and the other, shyer DJ—Ronnie, Asder called her—steps aside for him. The music changes seamlessly, bringing up the energy in the club without the excited programs noticing.

Sam’s definitely starting to get overwhelmed; every program in the club wants to get a glimpse of him. He’s somehow more of the center of attention than he was during his last visit, and he hasn’t even had a brawl started over him yet.

An elevator opens as the party’s hitting its stride and in struts Zuse, as confident as Sam remembers, but leaning a bit more heavily on his cane, and sporting a noticeable thin line of greyed-out voxels stretching across his face. Smugly, Sam resolves not to tell Zuse about his code-patching abilities. 

The music fades for a moment, playing quietly in the background. Asder looks visibly frustrated in the booth, upon Sam’s glance his way—did Zuse take some measure of control? It appears he did; Zuse has climbed his way up onto a few of the stairs leading to his private lounge and turns to face the crowd. “So what have we _here?_ ” Zuse declares. “I have heard some _stirring_ things indeed, programs, some stirring things indeed. I hear that not only has our treasured friend Tate returned to us—” Cheers from the crowd. Sam bets Zuse left the pause in deliberately. “—but we have an oh-so- _special_ guest here with us again!”

The crowd goes wild again, and Sam feels a few hands clap him on the shoulder or arm. He decides to play along a bit, and raises his glass towards Zuse, and the cheers that seemed like they were dying down rouse themselves up again. Zuse looks positively delighted. 

Zuse continues his speech. “How _thrilling_ it is to once more be graced with their presence! I won’t keep you all _hanging_ on my every word for any longer! And to our dear returned friend, Tate, won’t you pour out a round? _Libations!”_

The crowd cheers loudest of all as Zuse taps his cane once more, and the music spins back up to full volume. Beckoning him forward with a wiggle of the cane, Zuse invites Sam to climb the rest of the stairs with him. 

Playing the User’s part, Sam follows. “Was wondering when you were gonna show up, Zuse. Using that name again, or another alias? Castor’s out, maybe Pollux?”

“You are too clever, Son of Flynn,” Zuse says. “I like it, but I have in fact returned to my _almum nomen._ No good, this place is, without a recognizable face to tie it to. Castor was, in fact, _tragically_ killed in the explosion that desecrated my establishment, and his service to me, running the club in my thousand-and-forty-nine cycle absence, is _duly_ noted. But Zuse has returned.” 

They step behind the barrier of the lounge, and the stairs retract. The quiet doesn’t shock Sam nearly as much as he expected; it’s like there’s always a little bubble of silence around Zuse so that he can easily be heard. 

Zuse smiles, just a bit too wide and white. “It is oh, so electrifying to have you back here again,” he says quietly. Then, louder, he calls out: “Oh, Ronnie darling, _do_ come out of the shadows, we don’t want to scare our _dear_ User.”

The short program steps out of the shadows, helmeted and still, and she sits on the couch out of the way. 

Sam looks over at her. She looks directly at him—if her helmet were off, the eye contact would be uncomfortable. He looks back at Zuse, with one eyebrow raised.

“That’s just how Ronnie _is,_ you see. She… doesn’t like to be ‘perceived’. She barely even speaks to those she doesn’t trust, let alone let the helmet down,” Zuse explains. “I’m sure she won’t bother you, Son of Flynn—”

“Can you not call me that?” Sam interrupts. “Just Sam, please. Or Flynn, if you absolutely have to call me by something formal.”

“Very well then,” Zuse says. I trust she won’t bother you. Else, you can come and find me at your convenience. I really _must_ return to the festivities. Adieu, Flynn.” 

Sam winces, and Zuse walks back through the barrier and down the stairs, throwing his arms up in the air to put on another show. 

“Geez. I regret letting him call me Flynn.”

“Too much like your Dad?” Ronnie says from the couch, and Sam jumps. 

“Holy shit, you scared me,” Sam says, turning to face her. “I thought you didn’t talk!” 

“I don’t talk to people I don’t trust at least a little bit,” Ronnie says. “I trust you enough for my voice.”

Sam nods. “Well, I’m honored. Mind if I sit by you?” 

“Go ahead,” Ronnie says. 

Sam sits, then looks over at her. “Hey, how’d you know what a Dad even is? Programs don’t have parents.”

Ronnie turns her head to face him. Sam’s sure there’s a judgemental eyebrow underneath it. “Well, to start, when _my_ User programmed me, she never quite finished. I know more things about Users than most programs because of it. Also, your Dad told a few programs all about you when you were young. Some programs started taking other, younger programs under their wing, kinda like parents. Meyer and Tate had a program like that. Clu had her sent away to Argon pretty quickly when he took over. It was… sad.”

Sam frowns. “Wow, that sucks. Do you guys know what happened to her?”

“Well, last we heard, she had gained some sway at a club in central Argon,” Ronnie says. “That was a bit over 150 cycles ago. Asder caught up with her when he passed through on his way out to hide in Bismuth, but he couldn’t find her again on his way back. Apparently Argon’s a mess right now.”

Sam has an idea. He reaches over his shoulder for his disc, and Ronnie tenses up. “Whoa. Not going for a weapon, just gonna show you something.” She watches him with a hard glare through the mask, but lets him pull his disc out to show her a map of Argon. 

“Okay, this is current,” Sam says. “As of a cycle or two ago. It’s probably changed a little bit by now. But. Can you point to where she lived 150 cycles ago?”

“Is it really that bad?” Ronnie says, looking at the map. “Um, Asder told us it was around…” Ronnie stretches out a finger hesitantly, then brings it down on the map. “Here. What does that color mean?”

Sam’s heart sinks as he watches her plant her finger in the dead center of the blob of virus-yellow. “Nothing good.”

“Should we be worried about her?” Ronnie asks. 

“Yeah,” Sam admits. “Maybe don’t tell her dads.”

Ronnie nods. “Alright, I won’t. Maybe Asder might know something.”

Sam frowns. “Asder knows everything, thanks to Norn. I wouldn’t ask.”

Ronnie cocks her head to the side. “Well now I have to.”

“Of course,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “I’m kinda trying to keep it all quiet until it’s taken care of, though, so maybe don’t tell anyone else?”

“You got it,” Ronnie says.

Sam listens to the music for a moment more. It’s not something he recognizes. “Hey, what song is this?” he asks. 

“It’s one of Asder’s mixes,” Ronnie says. 

Sam shakes his head. “Wow. He created his own music in here. Oh, I should figure out how to give you, and him, and the other DJs my Spotify password! You’d love it.”

Ronnie cocks her head to one side. “Spotify?”

“It’s a music streaming service—you could listen to all the music the Users have written in the past twenty years, and more,” Sam says. “I bet the DJs of all programs would want to be introduced to a little new music.”

Ronnie sits up, attentive. “I would, yes.”

Sam gives an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Hell yeah,” he says. “I gotta make that work. I’ll get on it soon.”

He can hear the laughter in Ronnie’s voice as she says, “Asder’s gonna flip. Perhaps literally.”

“Good,” Sam says. “I aim to please. Your User, at your service.”

Ronnie nods happily, but eventually stops, and as though a switch is flipped, she changes her pose somehow, and Sam realizes that it’s time for them to be quiet. He gets up, makes himself a glass of energy at Zuse’s little private bar— _My turn now_ —and sits down on the couch to watch the programs below having fun. At one point Ronnie slips away quietly; Sam’s not sure how she left, probably through some way other than the main stairs, but he’s alone. He starts messing with some code; he saves a text file to his disc and starts spitballing ideas when the party all turns to face the door again. 

Sam notices it immediately. He stands up, saving the file, and looks around. “How the hell do I get down…” he mutters. He’s got no _need_ to jump again, unless he can’t find the stair controls. He looks for a moment more before curiosity overtakes him, and he jumps out of Zuse’s lounge. 

Gasps come from the programs, though gasps of awe rather than horror, at least. “You could have used the stairs,” Zuse calls. 

Sam sticks his tongue out in Zuse’s general direction, and turns to see the program that captured everyone’s attention in the first place—and of course it’s Tron. Sam grins. “Glad to see you, buddy,” Sam says. 

“How have you been?” Tron asks.

“You saw me a few hours ago, man, I’m doing great. Everyone here’s been awesome, I met a bunch of cool programs, learned… a lot, really.” Sam sighs. “It all matters so much, you know? Every program is a person, with a life and dreams and loved ones. It feels insane until you’re living it.” Tron nods. “I understand completely.” Tron takes Sam’s elbow and guides him through the room. It’s interesting, how when Sam is alone the programs crowd him in their curiosity and awe, but when Tron is by his side others give them a wide berth. _Hopefully respect and not fear,_ Sam thinks.

“Look at that,” Tron says as they come up to the edge of the windows facing west. He points almost to the side, to the right—and out the window Sam sees the I/O tower going up. It’s breathtaking, already almost as tall as the End Of Line, with wireframe blue columns stretching skyward to their eye level and beyond. “You did that,” Tron says. 

“Hey, you programs designed and built it,” Sam says, “I just gave you the idea.”

Tron rolls his eyes, and gently baps Sam on the arm. “Your code is in there, Sam. You’ve done so much more than you think. You’re always coming up with one idea or anothe—”

“Speaking of that, actually,” Sam interjects, “I was working on what could become the portal beacon. Doesn’t serve any purpose, I know, but—”

“First of all,” Tron says, “it lets us know when our User is here. That seems useful to me. And secondly, must everything you code have a Grid-changing purpose? I’d like to let there be things just for the fun of it, after… so long, in such a utilitarian setting.”

Sam wraps an arm around Tron’s shoulders and pulls him in for a quick side hug. “Yeah, man. Sure thing. The Grid’s already pretty, but a little extra beauty is always worth it. You asked me how _I’ve_ been in the past few hours, how about you? What happened with all those rectified programs?”

Tron beams. “I can’t help but take some extra joy in helping programs like them. I fought my way out of it, and being able to help them out of the same predicament always makes my centi-cycle.”

“So how’d you do it?” Sam asks. “How is it _you_ get to edit other programs’ code? You’re not an admin like Clu.” 

Tron crosses his arms and grins at Sam. “I, uh. Spent some time, after I dragged myself out of the Sea, looking at other programs and trying to figure out how to undo it for them. There were still quite a few Occupation programs left. Scipio was my unwilling test subject, actually. He was grateful, once I succeeded, but I definitely had to keep him contained, at first.”

“I don’t want to know,” Sam mutters. 

“I was only able to do it because, on this system, I can bend the rules a bit,” Tron says, quietly into Sam’s ear. “I try not to make it common knowledge. I don’t ever use it except when a program desperately needs help. It still feels a bit wrong, sometimes, to analyze code. I found I could do it, within my programming, to find threats in programs, and I could find admin influence. It’s put there by a program, so a program can take it back out.”

Sam thinks hard about this. “I dunno if I totally get it.”

“I get special access to code as a system monitor, and I can only undo what an admin’s done. That’s good enough to help the programs who’re rectified,” Tron simplifies. “I only discovered it after your first visit. And ironically enough, I can’t fix my own code, which is why I needed you to help me. The damage was worst in me.”

“Have you ever heard of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?” Sam murmurs under his breath. 

“No? I haven’t,” Tron says. “What are you talking about?”

Sam laughs. “It’s not something the Jedi would tell you,” he says, staying in character. “He could save others from death, but not himself. It’s a fictional story, Tron, man. You’ve never seen Star Wars! I’m gonna figure out how to do that for you. Get you guys movies, and music and stuff. I already promised Spotify to the DJs. But anyway, I get what you’re saying now. I think it’s real noble of you to want to do so much good like that.” Sam gives a deep sigh as he stares out at the tranquil landscape of the western side of the Grid. “I could stare at this all day, man,” he says.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but we can’t,” Tron says. “I believe that there are some matters in Argon that require our attention.”

“Ok, why don’t we head out then?” Sam says, inviting Tron to walk to the elevators with him. 

At the door, Sam turns to face the crowd. “It was nice meeting you all! I’ve got User’s business to attend to in Argon!”

The crowd cheers at them as they depart, and after so long at the party the true silence of the elevator is refreshing. 

“So. To business,” Sam says, leaning back against the glass. 

“To business,” Tron agrees, looking to his right, out the elevator and towards the half-built I/O tower. 

Sam follows his gaze. “You know, Tron, I’m a bit concerned about hooking that thing up to the outside cyber-world while we still have a virus on the loose in here.”

Tron steels himself, halfway to preening. “Rest assured, Sam, I have no such worry. Your partition will keep them locked in Argon, and even if they were to break out, it is my highest function to control what comes in and out of my system. I would never permit it.”

Sam holds up his hands in acceptance. “Alright, buddy, we can get it all set up once the tower’s finished. I’ll hold you to that.”

The elevator glides to a stop and the doors open, unceremoniously dumping Sam to the floor. Tron laughs at him. “That’s what you get for leaning against the doors like that.”

Sam grins at him, cheeky from the floor. He sticks one hand up in the air. “You gonna help me up?” Sam asks. 

Tron grabs the proffered hand and pulls Sam to his feet; Sam, in turn, spins himself around Tron and drags him by the hand to the solar sailer’s dock. 

“You gonna let go of that?” Tron asks in return.

“Nah,” Sam says, with a smile and an elbow jab to the side.

Watching over the city as they ride the solar sailer, Sam looks over the chasm surrounding Tron City. “Hey, what do you and Scipio think about the idea of a bridge to the east?”

“That then has an intersection with the Argon-Gallium highway?” Tron asks. “The construction teams were going to start working on it as soon as the structure of the new tower is finished.”

Sam nods, satisfied. “Good. I love you guys’ efficiency.”

As the sailer pulls up to the dock in Gallium, Tron breaks Sam’s grip on his hand and vaults onto the platform before the train is fully stopped. “Race you to Argon!” 

“Oh, it’s on,” Sam says, running out to the street with his baton in hand.

Sam jumps the big hill on the highway again, and lands ahead of Tron, and the scandalized look on Tron’s face as Sam glances back at him is worth the pain in the seat of his pants the rough landing leaves him. 

They bank around Purgos and zip into the city, past a program standing up on the edge of the bowl the district slopes down into. As she stares out over the city, her orange circuits warm her against the wind rolling off the bay. She regards the swathes of color with varying emotions: indifference to many; distaste for the viridian patch attempting to shelter weak programs that can’t stand up to the strength of her leader and his military might. Hatred for the shining bastion of white-blue out by the water, that her beloved commander and her revered general never could stamp out. And perhaps most importantly, admiration and jealousy for the sprawling acid yellow near the center of the city, drawing ever closer to her old enemies. She’s been planning long enough. It’s about time.

She pulls a baton from her thigh and races back down into the depths of Purgos. Programs in the streets dive out of her way; she cackles a bit with each one sent fleeing. 

In the underbelly of Purgos, she pulls up to a towering building scraping the undersides of a larger structure, and storms inside. 

The program lounging on the throne looks up at the bang of the doors. “Ceazie!” he declares. “What’s got you in such a tizzy?”

Ceazie glares up at him, dramatically pointing up at him. “I have _had it_ with you, Pavel!”

“Oh, whatever do you mean?” Pavel says, bringing a dramatic hand to his chest. “Surely you don’t insinuate a failure in my leadership?”

“Your _leadership_ , if you can even call it that, has the might of our faction _stagnating_!” Ceazie says. “You’re no Tesler, and you’re certainly no Clu! Putting your name and our Luminary’s in the same sentence should get me arrested for treason!”

“That can be arranged,” Pavel sneers.

“When Tesler gave you this district I hardly think he intended you to skulk down here in your safe little hole, hoarding the might of our Occupation’s armies!” Ceazie declares, indignant. “I am through waiting for you, I am _through_ waiting for you to bring the iron hand of perfection back to the squabbling programs of Argon. I’m leaving.”

Pavel sits up, almost pouting. “You can’t _leave,”_ he protests. “I forbid it!”

“Tough cheese, Pavel!” Ceazie says. “If you won’t take some action then I will. Take some of the burden off your shoulders.”

“Where will you even _go?_ ” Pavel says. “All of Tesler’s armies are here, under _my_ command!”

“I hear there’s a new guy in town,” Ceazie calls over her shoulder as she walks out. “And they’re doing great things.”

The sentries watch her go, scrambling after her at Pavel’s hollered command, but her lightcycle disappears into the streets of Purgos in the blink of an eye. 

Ceazie lets out a triumphant whoop as her lightcycle clears the inner bowl of Purgos and rockets into another program’s territory for the first time in over a cycle. 

As the orange glow fades entirely from her vision, a brief pang of sadness hits her in the chest. She shakes her head and guns the throttle. It’s for the best. 

The deep blue around her gives way to yellow before long, and Ceazie grins. 

She screeches to a stop outside a club—it’s the largest hub of activity, located near the middle of the yellow patch. It’s only logical she’d find the virus here.

She kicks the door to open it dramatically, and it merely slides aside to let her in. “ _Stupid functioning doors, not letting me make an entrance,”_ she mutters as she stalks into the crowded club. 

Every program inside turns to stare at her—they’re mostly decked out in assorted shades of blue and indigo, with the occasional green or orange thrown in. Ceazie’s prepared to push her way through a crowd, but they all seem to see the wisdom in parting to let the angry Occupation officer on a mission through. She storms up to the bar, where an authoritative program in striking teal seems to be holding court. “Where can I find the virus?” Ceazie demands.

“Depends,” the bartender says, getting out an empty glass and waving her hand in the direction of the DJs booth. The music starts again and the other programs in the building return to what they were doing. 

“On what?” Ceazie says, leaning in. 

“Your intentions,” the bartender says. She hovers her hand over two taps, and Ceazie has a feeling her answer dictates which will be pulled. “It’d hardly be right of anyone to point an assassin at the boss.”

“I’m seeking to defect from Pavel’s faction,” Ceazie says quietly. “He couldn’t take any action. He hides in his hole. I seek to do damage.”

“Good to know,” the bartender says, pulling one of the taps, filling the empty glass with lime green energy, and hands it to Ceazie. “On the house. The boss is out right now, but they’ll be back soon. They like hanging out on the top floor, but they come down here pretty often.”

Ceazie accepts the energy and takes a sip. “That’s nice. Thank you for your help.” She leans back a bit, casts an eye around the club. “I like the music,” she adds, gesturing with her head to the booth. 

“You’re the first program to say that in cycles,” the bartender whispers. “The boss has… eccentric tastes. I really wish Asder had been able to stick around for more than a few cycles, back when Clu was still in charge. But what’s done is done.” She raises her voice back up to normal levels. “Anyway, when you’ve finished your energy, head on up. The boss’ll be thrilled to see ya.”

Ceazie nods, and the bartender walks away to serve someone else. She downs the rest of the glass and heads for the wide stairs on one side of the club. 

Climbing up onto the second floor, she takes a glance down the dim hallway and sees only doors interspersed with subdued acid-yellow light panels. She turns to take the next set of stairs. 

At the top, she steps into a field of organized chaos. There’s an expansive desk backed up to a half wall with notes strewn about it and pinned above; it catches Ceazie’s eye and she strolls over to peer into the mind of the virus she’s about to tie her fate to. 

The notes are handwritten, in illegible writing. The map displayed on the wall shows Argon as she’d inferred it looks, but with annotation and arrows detailing possible expansions. There’s a list of what looks like program names and needs; Ceazie ignores that, and looks at the center of the desk, where there’s a drawing of a program frantically scribbled on a datapad in a myriad of colors, surrounded by even more frenzied words. If Ceazie could read them, she supposes, they’d tell her who it is and why the virus cares about them. 

She steps back and looks around again. A large framed image of a viral-yellow program in a dark hood jumps out from one wall—but based on the background, the picture has to be from over a thousand cycles ago. There are a lot of couches, sunken down into the floor. If this virus is a particularly tall program, there’s probably always one within a good leap’s reach. The other things spread throughout the room Ceazie doesn’t get a chance to inspect—there’s a loud crash behind her. 

Ceazie spins to face it; a program has leaped through the window and landed in one of the couch pits, surrounded by the sharp voxels of the window. 

“That’s a new one!” they say, picking up a handful of clear voxels and letting them fall back down onto the couch. They look directly up at Ceazie. “I keep telling the lackeys to stop replacing that window, but they never listen. The second time this millicycle I’ve broken it! Record time. Who are you?”

“I’m Ceazie,” she says, set off-kilter by the demeanor of the virus.

They leap up, voxels trailing from the long cape slung around their shoulders, and hold out a hand to shake. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Doomjuice.”

Ceazie takes their hand. “I would like to join your faction, Doomjuice. I left Pavel’s, in Purgos, despite my love for the last vestiges of my Luminary’s army, to join you, because you are taking action and making a real impact on the Grid while Pavel skulks in his hole.”

“Qualifications, experience and references?” Doomjuice says. “Kidding, I kid. Any program as earnest about my aims as you is welcome in my territory.”

“Well, I do have a talent with explosives and a passion for incendiaries,” Ceazie says. 

“Your opinions on destruction for its own sake?” Doomjuice says, like a professor holding discussion. 

“Makes great entertainment—almost like an art form.”

“Good,” Doomjuice says, their eyes twinkling with passion. “I like you. Do you have a place to stay, seeing as how your former leader so _rudely_ drove you from your old home?”

“I used to have a place in the main city,” Ceazie says. “But it’s in another faction’s territory.”

Doomjuice cocks their head to the side. “Which one?” they say, bounding over to their desk. “You can point to it on the map, if you wish.”

Ceazie studies it for a moment. “That one.”

Doomjuice frowns. “Hmmm. Eniac making a nuisance of himself again, then. You can stay here, if you like. There are free rooms on the second floor; the third floor is mine.”

 _I can see that,_ Ceazie thinks, and out loud says “Thank you! That is… very gracious of you.”

“I like to keep dedicated causers of chaos close to me,” Doomjuice says, “and what is closer than just downstairs? The others will get you set up later, no doubt after trying to fix my window _again._ As fun as it is romping amongst the voxels, I would like to have a clear path inside for once. And before you tell me to take the stairs—”

“The window’s just so much more fun?” Ceazie fills in. “Maybe if—”

She steps to the window frame, jagged chunks of glass still sticking in it by the edges. She pulls her disc from her back and swings, yelling as she tears into the frame with it. Gashes appear in it, and more building voxels tumble to the ground. 

Breathing heavy, she turns to face Doomjuice, whose expression belies a dumbstruck fascination. “If the frame is damaged as well, it’ll be much harder to fix. Maybe they’ll get the hint and leave it.”

Doomjuice grins, all of their sharp teeth on full display, and holds their arms out wide. “Welcome home, Ceazie,” they say. “You’re going to love it here.”

Ceazie makes her way back over to where they stand by the desk. “I have just one question,” she says, leveling a finger at the illustration on the desk, no doubt drawn by Doomjuice’s manic hands. “Who’s that?”

Doomjuice’s expression changes imperceptibly. “That, my dear Ceazie, is my current target of interest: one Sam Flynn.”

Ceazie shutters, face darkening, fists clenching. “Sam Flynn? You want to kill Sam Flynn?”

Doomjuice begins to look concerned. “Well, I’m not exactly intending deresolution, but I do want to know what makes him _tick_. If he were to be killed in the process, however, I certainly wouldn’t mind. Is that a dealbreaker?”

“Are you kidding me?” Ceazie asks, turning from the sketch to her new leader. “That’s a deal- _maker._ He was responsible for the end of the Occupation and the death of my Luminary. I will end that user _with my bare hands_.”

Doomjuice throws their head back and laughs, long and hard. The sound carries out the shattered window and over the rooftops, growing faint with distance until it’s almost undetectable.

A program in a long coat hears a faint noise, stops to listen, but before he can make out what it is, it’s gone. He shrugs and continues on his way to the edge of Doomjuice’s yellow territory. 

He escapes it before long, progress hindered by his travel on foot for stealth’s sake. Once he’s back in another territory he pulls out a lightcycle baton and races along eastward, back toward the apartment he’s occupying that used to belong to an Occupation officer with a streak of pyromania. 

He makes it and ducks inside quietly, doing a halfhearted sweep for listening devices. The longer he stays there, the more he realizes that the territory Eniac controls really is as peaceful as the man claims. He hasn’t found one since the day he moved in. 

Situated, he sits and copies a few memories from his disc to a data chip. He then spends time typing up a brief summary of what he’s observed, and ends it with a simple note. _Be there to elaborate in person within half a millicycle. See you soon. -Norn_

Norn then stands, goes to the convenient data station for which (on top of knowing the apartment’s former owner) he chose this apartment for and encrypts the chip before sending it off to the garage by the water. 

In the garage, Beck’s data station chirps. Everyone in the room looks over to it; Beck’s there, along with Paige, Mara, and the two most important figures on the Grid. 

“What’s that?” Sam asks.

“Norn’s latest report,” Beck says, running a decryption subroutine. 

“What’s the news?” Paige asks.

“It’s still decrypting,” Beck says, “cool your jets.”

They all wait with bated breath a microcycle longer before Beck says, “A-ha!” and sends the info packet to a bigger screen on the wall. 

“A few memories, along with some text notes,” Tron says, leaning into Sam’s side and whispering in his ear. “That’s the standard format.” 

“He’ll be here within the millicycle?” Paige asks. “I guess he could have just waited to bring all the informatio—”

“We can go over its contents now, and be prepared to ask questions when Norn arrives,” Tron says. “But in the meantime we have some downtime. I plan to read these files first, but I suggest you all get some rest.”

“You got it, buddy,” Sam says. He pulls Tron aside. “Hey, I’m gonna go see Eniac, is that okay?”

“Be careful,” Tron says. “Be very, very careful.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sam says. “Doomjuice is busy, Norn’s report told us they’ve got a new friend to play with.”

“I _mean_ it, Sam.” Tron stresses the words, placing a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

Sam leans into the touch. “Okay. I’ll be careful.”

This Argon feels a lot more menacing when you’re all on your own, Sam reflects. Especially with the faint yellow glow visible up the hill casting a shadow over the thoughts of everyone in the vicinity. His lightcycle races through the streets as fast as Sam can push it, and it’s less of a thrill and more anxiety, trying to get to the safety of Eniac’s place as fast as he can.

The safe embrace of the cool green light makes Sam relax, and as he rolls up to the train station, he’s almost entirely relaxed. 

There’s hardly anyone inside. “Did I time it badly?” Sam murmurs to himself, when a cursory search of the building turns up no sign of Eniac.

A squeak from further down the hall grabs Sam’s attention as he leaves Eniac’s office; it’s Eos the train driver, with their hands over their mouth in shock. “Oh, hey!” Sam says.

“H-hi!” Eos says, giving a little wave. “Are you looking for Eniac?” 

“Yeah, actually, I am,” Sam replies. “You know where he’s at?”

“He’s taking an off-milli,” Eos says. “At his apartment. I’ll take you to him, if you want. It’s not far! Only a few microcycles’ walk!”

“Thanks, Eos,” Sam says, clapping a hand on their shoulder, and Eos peeps again. _Little bit star-struck, aren’t they?_

Sam grins. “You don’t have to freak out around me, you know!”

“B-but, you _wrote_ me,” Eos stammers, and Sam begins to protest, but they continue, “and you saved me when Doomjuice tried to get me.”

“You’re not like this on the train, like the last time I saw you,” Sam says. 

Eos shrugs. “I’m in conductor mode on the train. In my element, I guess.”

They walk down the street, relaxed in the heart of Eniac’s territory, and Sam sees other programs strolling about. He gives them friendly waves and smiles and they acknowledge him back.

Eos brings him up to the front door of what almost looks like a Grid townhouse, and opens the door up with a tap of their disc. “Eniac!” they call out. “I’m back, and I brought—uh, a friend!”

A voice emanates from within. “A friend? Eos, who is—”

Eniac rounds the corner and stops short at the sight of Sam. “Oh!” 

“Hey again,” Sam says. “I just wanted to have a conversation. About what you told me the last time we saw each other.”

Eniac nods in understanding. “Ah. Scarper off, Eos, would you please? This is… kind of a private subject.”

Eos pouts, but turns to leave regardless. 

“It’s not that I don’t trust you with it,” Eniac says, looking as though he were scared of saying it, “but it’s who may force it out of you. Very dangerous information.”

Eos nods. “I understand.” They leave—not outside, as Sam supposed, but deeper into the home and up a set of stairs. 

“So I just wanted to talk about a few things,” Sam says, walking farther inside to what looks like Eniac’s kitchen. “How’ve you been? I’ve been studying up and your area looks like the most peaceful space in the city.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Eniac says. “Surely Mara’s Garage…” 

“They may be safe, but you can’t get away from the tension there,” Sam says. “It feels like a safe haven here. It feels a bit like a war zone there. Do you feel threatened at all, here? Do we need to be sending protection?”

“Well, it was worrying me until that antivirus program, Norn, showed up,” Eniac says. “He’s done a great deal more than he knows for morale. Apparently Tron sent him to Argon, but he settled in my territory of his own choice…?”

“If that’s what you’ve heard, that’s as much as I know,” Sam says. “Tron was handling that, I haven’t even met the guy yet.”

“Ah.” Eniac looks untroubled. “As long as he continues to repel threats, I have faith in him.”

“Well, that’s good,” Sam says. “He’s been sending regular reports to the garage crew as well, and I hope to meet him later. I only came over here to talk with you. Doomjuice has really been throwing a wrench in a lot of plans for Argon, but at least the train through the city, linking Bismuth with the rest, is running smoothly. Have you tried visiting Bismuth yet, see if there’s any news on the other ISOs out there beyond?”

Eniac levels a miffed stare at Sam, who flinches. “Sorry.”

“Let me guess: the quarantine was Tron’s idea, too?”

“Yep,” Sam says. “Again: sorry. If you want, I can poke around for information for you next time I’m out in Bismuth? Just ask, anytime. Shoot me a message or something.”

“An admin must mind a thousand tasks at once on the Grid, and you’re filling that role plus another in the world of the Users,” Eniac says with a wave of his hand. “If Tron is handling the virus situation while you’re away you can be excused for forgetting about such a small detail. I am eagerly looking forward to a trip further east, when I am allowed it.”

“Indulge me and speculate a bit?” Sam asks. “If you had to guess, how many ISOs do you think could have made it to safety? I didn’t spot any in Bismuth, but that’s not necessarily a bad sign. Maybe they all made it to the safehouse you told me about.”

“Well, are you aware of the numbers and history from _before_ Clu took full control of the Grid?” Eniac asks. Sam shakes his head no. “There were sixteen million programs in Tron City alone. Millions more in the three outlying cities. Just a few hundred thousand ISOs.”

“That’s a lot,” Sam says. “But I understand how that could be ‘just a few,’ comparatively.”

“It _is_ a lot compared to whatever number we’re at now,” Eniac says. “Over half of the ISOs lived in Arjia City.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “But that’s not around anymore. I’d have heard of it if it were.”

“Destroyed,” Eniac says, head dropping his hands. “With everyone still there. The same millicycle Clu tried to kill Tron and sent Flynn running. My family and I were lucky to be out of the city at the time. So many of my friends were there… It was populated pretty much exclusively with ISOs.”

Sam is horrified. “An easy target.”

“Just like that. The survivors scattered through the other four cities quickly realized that the farther from Tron City they could get, the better.” Eniac then begins another thought. “Someone had an idea—he’d known a program named Gibson, who originally had the idea of a hidden colony in the Outlands, called Bostrum. The first attempt fell victim to the last virus the Grid saw, called Abraxas. We were going to make a second try, even further east than the last, and I told my family—” Eniac’s voice breaks. “I told my family to go on without me, make it to safety, and I would help others make it before coming to New Bostrum myself. I haven’t seen them since.”

Sam puts a hand on Eniac’s shoulder. “Would it help to talk about them?”

“Maybe a little bit,” Eniac says. “It still feels too dangerous to say anything in specific.”

“Don’t force yourself,” Sam assures him. “I can learn more when I eventually meet them.”

“If they’re even ali—”

“Be optimistic,” Sam says. “We don’t want to jinx it.”

“I had a partner, and we had just created a beta when everything went to hell,” Eniac says. “She was so little, our little codelet. Newly rezzed.”

“What, like a baby?” Sam blurts out. 

“A few other ISOs said that she looked a lot like Flynn’s beta. I suppose that’s you?” Eniac says. “All grown up. Just like my little girl, Users willing she lived. I wish I could have been there for her.”

“Hey, if she’s out there, when you find her, she’ll be so happy to see you,” Sam says. “Just hang in there, until this virus thing blows over.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Eniac says, tongue in cheek. “I’ve practically adopted another beta. Programs may not come as small as ISOs at first, but it was second nature to take Eos under my wing.”

“I thought they lived with the garage crew?” Sam says. 

Eniac shrugs. “They like it better here, and as long as they check in at the garage every so often, everyone’s happy.”

“I take it they don’t know about your… history?” Sam asks.

Eniac shakes his head. “I don’t want to worry them, or put them in danger. They’re just starting to learn about it in general, much less on a more personal level from me.

Sam sighs deeply, taking it all in. “Yeah, I got the same broad strokes of the history from Dad, but it’s a bit different hearing about it from, you know… an ordinary person like you. I get the sense that Quorra was in the thick of the action. She doesn’t talk about it much.”

“Quorra?” Eniac says. “How is she doing? I may not know how many ISOs made it all the way to safety, but… a guarantee of safety for one is something to cling to.”

“She’s been doing great, really starting to settle in. She’s gotten a job at ENCOM, the company I run up top, in R&D. It’s a good place for her creativity,” Sam says. “She’s gotten used to the sun, and California traffic, and Marvin. My—our—dog.”

Eniac hangs on his every word. “I have no idea what a dog is, but I assume it’s a good thing.”

“He’s a cute animal,” Sam says. “A pet?”

“Alright,” Eniac says, clearly still clueless but willing to accept the strange words at face value. “How did she react to hearing about more ISOs?”

Sam’s brain executes a cartoon-perfect record scratch. “Uhh…”

“You haven’t told her,” Eniac fills in. 

“In my defense,” Sam says, “It’s been a hell of a few weeks. I promise to, next time I see her.”

“From a User-world perspective, she’s barely been gone, correct?” Eniac asks. “It’s confusing, but I picked up the general idea when Flynn made excuses for his prolonged absences. Perhaps it’s been… time to adjust?” 

“Maybe so,” Sam suggests. “But maybe she deserves to know she’s not the sole survivor.”

“I’ll leave that up to you, Sam,” Eniac says. “If you came out all this way just to talk to me, alone, you had probably better be getting back before Tron—”

“Loses his mind?” Sam fills in. “He would.”

“He cares,” Eniac says. “Differently than I do for Eos.”

Sam pauses in the doorway, thinking about Eniac’s cryptic statement. “I… care about him, too.”

“Run along, then,” Eniac says. Sam waves him goodbye as Eos comes downstairs, asking softly if they can come back yet, and Eniac welcomes them back into the room. _It’s nice_ , Sam thinks, _that he can find some kind of family again._

He gets back on his lightcycle to return to Tron, and the others. 

Sam’s driving back when he sees a flash of movement in the buildings to his right. Sam slows, keeping the bike straight while he peers out into the passing crossroads for a hint of whatever it was. He pulls his right arm from the handlebars to go for his disc; the lightcycle stays steady—

Something collides with the front wheel. Sam reflexively brakes, head snapping back around to see what it was—

A program, who’d rolled upon impact and now gets to their feet. The hand Sam already had on his disc grabs and activates it, but the program puts hands up in the air in a placating gesture. 

“Sam Flynn,” the program says from behind a distinctive pink-crossed helmet. “My name is Norn.”

Sam lowers his disc and puts it back. “That was the worst possible way to introduce yourself, dude.” 

“An apology, I suppose, is in order,” Norn says. “It wasn’t my intention to get hit by your lightcycle.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, even if this isn’t the way I saw it happening,” Sam says. “Tron’s told me a bit about you. Talked a big game about the antivirus program that was going to keep Doomjuice contained.” 

“Good to see you have some reasonable expectations regarding my role,” Norn says. “I was written for containment, destroying viral threats before they can escalate. It was the job of the system monitors to actually derezz any large-scale viral threats, but my job to prevent them from getting to that point. If it does, like it has now, I just report what happens to them and the system User. That’s you and Tron.”

“So, you reported to my dad?” Sam wonders aloud. 

“Yes,” Norn says tersely. “For cycles I visited him, reporting no threats and tiny things ended before they could be a problem. Then Abraxas showed up.”

“Abraxas,” Sam says, disgust creeping into his voice. “That’s the program Clu corrupted into a virus, and tried to pass off as a natural evolution. Tron gave me the Grid’s virus history crash course when Doomjuice showed up.”

“Your father blamed me,” Norn says. “He stripped me of my official role as an antivirus, promising to come back and fix the problem later. Do you know what happened?”

“Let me guess, he never did?” Sam says. “I’m starting to notice a theme.”

“Your father… certainly could have been more attentive to programs’ problems,” Norn says. “Putting it delicately.” 

“Well, I don’t think either of us have tremendous amounts of free time at the moment,” Sam says. “We’ve both got places to be, presumably. At least I do. But next time we both have a moment, Norn, I promise you I’ll finish what Dad started and give you the improvements he promised.”

“Sure,” Norn scoffs. 

Sam has the sinking feeling that Norn doesn’t believe him. 

Norn clears his throat, prompting another volley of half-hysterical questions in Sam’s head about program anatomy. He then shifts awkwardly from foot to foot and takes a lightcycle baton from within his ankle-length trench coat, waving it about. “Well. I do, uh, have places to be, as you said. It was good to meet you, User?” 

“It was great to meet you too,” Sam says, “can’t wait to keep working with you in the future!”

They both wave each other goodbye. Norn rezzes his own cycle and Sam guns the engines of his, and they’re both headed in the same direction. 

“Well. This is awkward,” Sam says out loud as they drive alongside. 

Norn appears to sigh deeply—inaudible over the whine of the lightcycles’ engines, but clearly written in the slump of his shoulders. 

Pink and white lightcycles pull up together to the garage, and when they end up on their feet again Tron marches up to the both of them. He’s clearly torn between addressing Norn and Sam first, head snapping back and forth to make eye contact with the both of them. 

Beck comes up behind Tron, placing a hand on Tron’s shoulder. “I got this, Tron. You worry about Sam and I’ll handle Norn’s intel.”

“But it’s my job to handle virus strategy,” Tron protests.

“And mine as well,” Beck says. “It’s _not_ my job to take care of the User. That’s your arena.”

Tron looks torn for a split second more before grabbing Sam by the wrist and walking towards the elevator.

“Nice meeting you again, talk to you later!” Sam calls over his shoulder at Norn as he’s tugged away. “Tron, what is _up_ with you?”

“I need to take care of you,” Tron says. “It has been almost a millicycle since you came to the Grid, and I know you tend to visit after full days of work in the User world. It has to be time for you to sleep soon; I will not let you exhaust yourself.”

“So you’re putting me to bed?” Sam says. “But I’m not tired, I’m not ya-aa _aawn_ ing.”

Tron rolls his eyes. “Come on, Sam.”

Sam allows himself to be pulled into the room he’d slept in during his first visit to the garage, and when Tron gently shoves him in the chest, Sam allows himself to flop down to the bed and shimmy under the covers.

But he’s still sitting upright. “Hang on,” he says to Tron. “Last couple of times I’ve been to the Grid and you made me sleep, I just slept in my gridsuit. Let me at least get something resembling pajamas?”

“What’s a pajama?” Tron asks.

“Soft sleep clothes,” Sam says, peering at a code display on his disc. “You know what, fuck this, I don’t have the energy to code right now.”

“Because you need to sleep,” Tron insists.

“Okay, okay, I will,” Sam says. “But I can—”

He makes a tweak, puts the disc back on its dock, and shivers as the material of his gridsuit derezzes and he’s left in only a pair of boxers from his User-world outfit under the blanket. Tron stares, wide-eyed, as it happens. 

“What?” Sam says.

Tron sits on the side of the bed and reaches out, hesitantly. Sam watches his fingertips as they come within a hair’s breadth of skimming down his chest. He shivers.

“No circuits,” Tron says. “Stranger and stranger.”

“No circuits,” Sam echoes. “Users don’t have them at all. Do programs have them, below their outfits…?”

“Yes,” Tron says. “It feels odd, indeed, that you don’t.”

“You’ll have to show me sometime—” Sam breaks off into a yawn. “But for now I think—”

“Sleep,” Tron fills in.

“Sleep,” Sam says, and lays down fully. He wraps the covers around himself and smiles up at Tron even as his eyelids flicker shut. He’s so tired that by the time Tron stands, he’s already slipped into the welcome embrace of sleep. 

There’ll be more to do next millicycle, and each time after that, but for now, Sam rests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More OC's from friends: Ronnie was created by createtheperfectsystem on tumblr/OV103 on ao3; Tate and Meyer were a collaborative effort between OV103 and myself. Floric is from holhorse on tumblr; and Ceazie is the next OC of floatingbrainspace's to be featured! Thanks to them for letting them appear!


End file.
